connick

Couldn't they have walked on water or perhaps parted the seas to get across? Those scenarios are both likely and realistic and not at all silly or ignorant.

sugarhitman

Spin (The spin doctor) and Jack the what??? has went so far in defending their false interpretations of Daniel that they have seperated the Medes and Persions from the Medo-Persian Empire (or the United Iranian Kingdom). Another example how critics will make up things to support their lies. <edit>

When Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall he told Belshazzer (a king the critics said did not exist until the chronicles were discovered) that Babylon would be given to the Medes AND Persians. This is why Medo-Persia is represented as the TWO arms and chest of the statue. The TWO horns of the goat with one horn growing up later to show that one of the powers (Persia) rising up after the other (history has it that Cyrus conquered his grandfather and the Medes raising up the Persian power). It is also the bear that was RAISED UP ON ONE SIDE.


"Cyrus the Great established a UNIFIED Iranian empire of the Medes AND Persians, often referred to as the Achaemenid Persian Empire, by defeating his grandfather and overlord, Astyages the shah of Media."---Wikipedia.

..."many Medes were highly placed in Persian administration. The Achaemenid rulers are reffered to in the Bible as the 'Persians and Medes' which reflects the mixed nature of their rule." www.Loyno.edu

"Cyrus I united the Medes and Persians and founded the Persian empire under Achaemenid dynasty."---www.ancientanatolia.com


"Cyrus the Great melds the Persians and the Medes into ONE people and founds the Achaemenid empire..."---www.philosphyforum.net


"He not only conciliated the Medes but united them with the Persians in a kind of Dual Monarchy of the Medes and Persians..."----http://history-world.org


"His first act after conquering the Medes was to unite them with the Persians...He viewed Persia and Medea as the STATE OF IRAN." http://college.hmco.com-Houghton Mifflon texbook


I could go on listing source after source but this isnt really necessary since most already know the accuracy of this history that was taught in high school. In Ch.8 In the conflict between the goat and the ram the angel makes it very clear that the ram having the Two horns are the kings of Media and Persia (they were on the same animal thus they are the same kingdom there is no seperation of the two). Greece defeated Medo-Persia to become the third kingdom of Nebu's image, the third beast of Daniel's vision. Rome is the fourth.

Why have critics denied the very obvious? simple,they have dated Daniel to about 200 B.C. saying he witnessed the events and wrote afterwards. But when asked about the prediction of the rise and division of Rome, the fourth kingdom which did not happen until 476 B.C. (Rome's division, the only kingdom predicted that would not fall due to foriegn attacks, but would be divided after Daniels death which would remain in this state until the coming of the future world leader....Jesus Christ) . So now they have to say "well the the fourth kingdom is greece" and "there was no Medo-Persian Empire" to prop up their <claim> Just like they do with the prophecy concerning Tyre.

spin

Where did you get this capitalized bit?? The Persians conquered Media and absorbed it. This is certainly unifying "the two separate Iranian kingdoms" as Wiki puts it -- under the Persian king.

Well, of course s[ugar]hitman has done what wasn't asked of him. He wasn't asked to trawl the net and find more net-quality material, but to hit professional historians and get solid information. Incapable of doing so, he should not wonder that people see him as wasting his time.

What's stranger is why he has decided to add further insult to the thread by calling people <edit for consistency>.

Totally grotesque corruption of reality. Belshazzar was son of Nabonidus and was never king. That has never changed.

Sadly it didn't happen. The Medes suffered the same fate as the Babylonians. They were defeated by the Persians. Prior to the time of Cyrus, the Persians were vassals of Media, but Cyrus's conquest turned the tables with the Medes becoming Persian vassals.

You are not saying anything here. You are assuming what you need to show.

We basically agree on this.

Yup. Media got conquered and absorbed. Cyrus often put local people in control of local areas. His satrap of Media was a Mede. His satrap of Assyria was an Assyrian ("Gadatas"). The satrap of Babylon after Gubaru was a Babylonian, Nabu-ahhe-bullit.

Referred to in the bible in Daniel, the source of what is under question.

Many Medes had high positions, as many other peoples did. Persia was a small state in origin.

Ummm, Persian empire, umm under a Persian dynasty.

Another great site for historical research. One should understand why an internet search will not be very helpful when doing serious research. But that doesn't seem to worry s[ugar]hitman.

Quite screwed. Dual monarchy?? What a farce. What are the signs of this dual monarchy when all the kings of Persia were Persians?

Cyrus's mother was Median, so it's not strange that people of the same race should be united. That doesn't change the fact that they were united under the Persian king, not as Medes and Persians but as the Persian empire. Talk of them as a partnership is unhistorical.

All you were asked for was a few historians. You couldn't even do that. Instead you trawled the net and came up with the usual half-ass rubbish.

Until you open a history book -- you know what a book is don't you: it's what existed before internet debased learning -- you wouldn't know what the reality is. Were the Greeks invaded by the Medes and Persians? Naturally not. Any schoolchild who has studied the Persian Wars can tell you. Medes and Persians is a figment of christian pseudo-culture. You can't blame Daniel for the mess that christians have made of that book. If it weren't for this sorry piece of false-history nobody would hear about the Medes and the Persians.

Yep. We're reading ch.8, not ch.7 We have two kingdoms, the first horn being the Medes and the second, the Persians. Obviously they are two separate entities: that's how Daniel describes them, two horns, one coming after the other. That they are of the same animal is quite a perceptive image, but it doesn't help this silly notion that they were a united dual monarchy. That is simply farcical.

Utter rubbish. Greece defeated the Persians. It is that plain. But I can't expect you to do something primitive such as open a book.

You are mixing visions and losing control of yourself.

What's obvious is that you have no reason to follow this make believe stuff.

Anyone but you can name the ten kings which are the horns of the fourth beast:

Alexander
Seleucus I
Antiochus I
Antiochus II
Seleucus II
Antiochus III
Seleucus IV
Seleucus III
Antiochus -
Heliodorus

These last three are important in understanding the story of the little horn (Antiochus IV): Heliodorus assassinated Seleucus III and set up his son Antiochus under his own control, but soon decided to do away with the young Antiochus. This is when the younger son of Antiochus III came along and removed Heliodorus. Antiochus IV was not destined to be king, but he came along when three horns made room for this little horn, Dan 7:8.

Umm, I think ya mean 476 AD, there s'hitman.

Obviously if Daniel was referring to the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, ie the kingdoms which succeeded Alexander, then these are the division, not Rome.

But let's move along to 8:8-9. Alexander, "the great horn is broken, and in its place there came up four prominent horns toward the four winds of heaven." Four horns? The diadochi, the contending kingdoms after the death of Alexander. And out of one of them, the Seleucids, came a little horn, Antiochus IV, "which grew exceedingly great toward the south, toward the east and toward the beautiful land (of Judea)", as can be seen in the reign of Antiochus, who attacked Egypt in the south, Parthia in the east and Judea. The host of heaven here is the people of god in Jerusalem. 8:11 tells us of Antiochus stopping the regular sacrifice, just as the prince does in 9:27, and the king of the north does in 11:31. Obviously the stopping of the sacrifice is done by the same person and the only person in history recorded as having done so was Antiochus IV.

Moving on to ch.11, once again Alexander, the warrior king, is broken and his kingdom is divided toward the four winds. What are the four winds, s'hitman? Yes, that's right, the diadochi, who struggled for ascendancy after Alexander's death. This is now followed by the history of the struggle between the king of the north (the Seleucid king of the generation) and the king of the south (the Ptolemy). 11:6 deals with Berenike the Ptolemy queen in Antioch and her son who are assassinated at the beginning of the Third Syrian War. Her brother, Ptolemy III, the current king of the south, revenged her death in 11:7. You can follow the struggle down to 11:20 with various events in the struggle, until we come once again to Seleucus III, who sent his official, the aforementioned Heliodorus, to Jerusalem (see 2 Macc 3), "but within a few days he shall be broken though not in anger or in battle", Dan 11:20b -- according also to the Maccabean story. "In his place shall arise a contemptible person on whom royal majesty had not been conferred -- yup back to Antiochus IV, who was not destined to the throne, but who took it from Heliodorus. The details are there many more than I have listed here briefly. 11:14-19 deal with Antiochus III's developing ascendancy over Egypt. 11:25-28 go into great detail about Antiochus IV's invasion of Egypt and his dealings with the two kings of Egypt. (Yeah, come on s'hitman, give me a realistic context for the two kings of the south in 11:27.) Antiochus was only stopped in his conquest by the Romans who showed up and told him to get out of Egypt -- the ships of Kittim in 11:30.

Obviously, sugarhitman has no response to the great amount of information available on the subject. He has had the opportunity for many posts now. As an apologist, god should probably find someone who does a more realistic job.

Yup, but don't let scholarship get between you and a good dose of self-stimulation.

He has fundamentally admitted that there was no "Medo-Persian Empire", that it was in fact the Persian empire. But he can't go the whole hog and say it. He will hedge and call people liars and do everything not to admit the obvious.

The idiocy about "Old Tyre"! :notworthy: It's been shot to pieces but this old mariner walks around with his albatross, like it's the thing to wear.


spin

Sheshonq

In point of fact, Cyrus conquered the Medes. For a brief time, they ruled as co-regents, although Persia was always the senior partner in that arrangement. However, the Medes revolted, and were crushed. From that time forward, the Persians were in control, and the Medes were out of favor. No more co-regency.

All that happened decades before the invasion of Babylon, and (obviously) decades before any "writing on the wall." So Daniel remains incorrect in his characterization of the Achamaenid Persian empire.

Also false. Belshazzar's existence was known from other documents. You've been blindly accepting whatever your fundie sources tell you without checking them.

That dating comes from the historical mistakes in Daniel, as well as from linguistic cues.

You lost the Tyre argument. And now you're 90% the way to losing the Persia/Media argument as well.

Johnny Skeptic

Message to sugarhitman: Why didn't Ezekiel mention Alexander? Wouldn't that have helped?

If God can predict the future, and wants people to believe that he can predict the future, he could have adequately done that long ago. One way would have been to predict when and where some natural disasters would occur that have occured. By "when," I mean month, day, and year.

What good are Bible prophecies to people who are not aware of them, which during Old Testament times would have been a large percentage of the people in the world? Even today, some people are not aware of Bible prophecies.

sugarhitman

Who is the Anti-Christ? The bible makes it clear no one will know for sure until he rises. But one thing is certain it is not Antiochus. Antiochus is an example of the actual Anti-Christ, who will make Antiochus look like a saint. The best way of trying to indentify the Anti-Christ is to let "scripture interpret scripture."

In the Book of Daniel Gabriel when explaining the four beast vision the little horn is seen arising out of the fourth kingdom (Rome) ch.7:23-26. In ch.8 it is seen coming out of one of the parts of the Grecian empire. Contradiction? No. Because not only was Greece the third empire it was also part of the Roman empire (the fourth kingdom, the Byzantine Roman empire or east Roman empire was Greek controled). And it is also a member of the E.U. (nations of the Roman empire in which the empire divided into....including Greece.)

In Revelations ch.13 the beast John sees coming out of the sea is like a leopard, a lion, a bear, with seven heads and ten horns. This is a unified empire composed of the previous empires of Daniel of Babylon (Iraq) Medo-Persia (Iran) Greece (including Syria, Egypt, and Turkey) and Rome (the ten horns). The Anti-Christ is the ruler of this unified global government along with the Indo-European powers (the ten horns) from which he will come.


So who is he? Well according to Daniel He is the prince of the people who would destroy Jerusalem and the Temple (I.E. prince is a title given to angels esp. rebel angels. Michael the Angel of the Jews is called a prince. Gabriel gives us a small glimspe into spiritual warfare between loyal and rebel angels: "The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me 21 days, but Michael one of the chief princes, came to help me....now will I return to fight with the prince of Persia: and when I am gone forth, lo, the prince of Grecia shall come." Daniel ch.10:13, 20. Paul says "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against PRINCIPALITIES, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against SPIRITUAL wickedness in high places." Ephesians 6:12.

In rev. 17 the Anti-Christ is said to come out of the bottomless pit (a place made for the "devil and his angels"--Jesus). In ch.13 he has a deadly wound that heals, he is also the eigth king who was, is not, and will be again rev.17:11 , all these clues points to some kind of ressurrection which proves the Anti-Christ will not be human. He will even be successful against the angels "And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven and it cast down some of the host (angels) and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them." Daniel 8:10. He will even try to take heaven "How are you fallen from heaven o Lucifer son of the mourning! how are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations! For you said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of congregation, in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most High. Yet you shall be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." Isaiah 14:12-15 and " Yeah he even magnified himself to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of HIS (the prince of the host) sanctuary was cast down...he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes." Daniel 8. In Rev. 19:20 The beast and the false prophet are thrown into the lake of fire without a trial, when according to scripture "it is appointed for men to die once but after this the judgement" (I.e. trial) Clear proofs that they are in fact fallen angels.

Conclusion: Antiochus is not the Anti-Christ....heck, he's not even human. The book of Daniel was not written after the events....for the events are yet future.:wave:

Johnny Skeptic

Message to sugarhitman: You still have not come up with sensible motives why God would want to predict the future. Please do so. In addition, why didn't Ezekiel mention Alexander? That would have been helpful, right? Further, what good are Bible prophecies to people who do not have access to them, which during Old Testament times would have been lots of people all over the world. Even today, some people have not heard any Bible prophecies.

spin

There are none so blind who will not see.

Once again the elephant which will trample down the whole world and break it to pieces, 7:23. The ten kings I indicated in my previous post and the one which put down three kings, ie Antiochus IV Theos Epiphanes ("god revealed"), 7:24. This ruler stopped sacrifice and forbade the ritual calendar for about three and a half years, "a time, two times and half a time", 7:25, the half a week of 9:27.

Still confused about visions. Chapter 8 doesn't deal with the four kingdoms. That's chapter 7, but sugarhitman can't get it straight. Chapter 8 deals with a ram and a goat. And from the four kingdoms following the big horn of the goat came the little horn. Note that it's still the goat, ie Greece.

Revelation written several hundred years later has nothing to say about what Daniel meant.

As just said, Revelation is irrelevant to our study of Daniel, though the contrary that Daniel is relevant to Revelation is true, for Daniel was written before Revelation and was a strong influence on it.

And the foolish rubbish about Medo-Persia is simply vanity. Vanity of vanities says the preacher.

Please don't try to do philology with a translation.

Prince, $R, as in prince of Persia and prince of Greece, but prince, NGYD, as in the prince in 9:26. These are two separate words. The prince of 9:26 is not of the same kind as the princes of Persia and Greece.

Paul is writing centuries after Daniel and so is no help.

Ditto. You must work from the period. Daniel naturally influenced christian literature, so one would expect writers to copy images from Daniel.

And naturally the anti-christ has nothing to do with Daniel, which is a Jewish text. As I said, eisegesis, that's what you're doing. You are perverting the text with your a priori ideas from christianity. You can't expect to understand a text when you too busy injecting your own ideas to read it.

Lovely metaphor for the temple, god's home. The host of heaven are the priests who tend god's temple. The prince of hosts here is the high priest, of course, 8:11. Antiochus was seen as arrogant by the Jews, so arrogant that he deemed to take away the daily sacrifice and thus challenge god.

No, it's "morning" actually. Heylal, "lucifer" in Latin, is the day-star, Venus, which precedes the sun, god, at sunrise in this metaphor. This is not about the anti-christ, though every fundamentalist christian seems to have been indoctrinated to misunderstand the text. Isaiah clearly says that it is the king of Babylon in 14:4. Now, of course, in 165 BCE, Antiochus IV was, as the Seleucid ruler, in fact, the king of Babylon, so yes, there is a connection between Daniel here and Isaiah 14.

Yes, Antiochus IV would get his just deserts.

Back to Daniel 8, the little horn -- same image as in 7:8 --, Antiochus IV, who sprang out of one of the four kingdoms which developed after Alexander's death, 8:22, "a king of bold countenance, skilled in intrigue", 8:23.

Antiochus has thrown down some of the hosts of heaven (8:10) and stopped the regular sacrifice and overthrew the sanctuary, 8:11. But in the end he will be broken when he rises up against the prince of princes.

Once again wasting time meddling with christian literature when we are dealing with Jewish literature.

It would be strange if he were. The anti-christ is a patently christian idea, while Daniel is a patently Jewish book. Nevertheless, all the evidence in Daniel shows that the little horn, the prince of 9:26-7, and the king of the north in 11:21-45 are all images of Antiochus IV.

Because sugarhitman is looking at the wrong interpretation, much of the text of Daniel is a mystery to him.

1. All this king of the north and king of the south stuff for example. As he cannot see that this is a detailed account of the Syrian Wars as seen from Jerusalem.
2. He cannot explain why Daniel's villain stopped regular sacrifices in the temple when there is only one person in history who is recorded as having stopped regular sacrifices and that was Antiochus IV.
3. He cannot say what the four kingdoms which arose after Alexander were -- the four winds of 8:8 and 11:4, while only two of those kingdoms survived from the four, that of the north and that of the south.
4. He doesn't want to see the elephant in chapter 7 because it would be obvious that we were dealing with the Seleucid kingdom, yet we have a huge animal with big teeth (tusks, Hebr. $N means both "teeth" and "ivory") that trample everything before them.
5. He can't tell us who the ten horns and the extra little horn which arose in the place of the last three (though he might try Vespasian as the little horn, but, including even Julius Caesar who was not an emperor, there were only nine emperors before Vespasian).

Yeah, like we're convinced, aren't we?


spin

sugarhitman

To Johnny: God gives us prophecies to prove that he alone is God 2. it serves as a way to seperate the true God from the false gods. 3. why didnt God name Jesus as the Messiah in all those prophecies about him? why didnt he name Alexander, why dont he give us the name of the Anti-Christ? Some things we have to do on our own "those who seek shall find" "But you Daniel shut up the words and seal the book even to the time of the end MANY SHALL RUN TO AND FRO AND KNOWLEDGE SHALL BE INCREASED." Even Daniel wasn't given the answers to the end time prophecies And knowledge will increase about these prophecies as people run to and fro (through scripture) to figure it out. But to do this you have to believe.....and seek for the truth. 4. Bible prophecies were to stregthen the faith of the Jews (because prophecies are miracles themselves) The nations around the Jews had already rejected God (Yes they knew who he was) so prophecies would not have done them any good at all. (just like the unbelieving people of this forum).

sugarhitman

to spin: question, Did antiochus destroy Jerusalem and the Temple? "and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary" Does he confirm a covenant with Israel for seven years? Ch9:27 Does he arise after Messiah is cut off? Ch.11 the war between the king of the north and south, guess who rise up out of this conflict you guess it....Rome.