Steven Carr

And you are ignoring the fact that this is something that has been made up.

The Jews used the intercalary month method.

spin

You don't know this. You are merely being creative.

If you knew anything about the Hebrew calendar, they inherited the 360 day calendar from the Persian domination. By the time 1 Enoch's Astronomical Book was written, the Hebrews knew that a 360-day calendar needed correction for cultic purposes and the famous 364-day calendar was put into practice at the end of the 3rd c. BCE. The second half of Daniel was written in 164 BCE, during the era of the 364-day calendar, whose life continued till 63 BCE when most of the priests who used it were killed in the Temple, then the Pharisees, who used the secular Greek/Syrian calendar of 354 days, gained cultural hegemony and enforced their practices. Daniel's calendar was 364-days. The main calendar of the Dead Sea Scrolls was 364 days. It follows after the popular 1 Enoch.

If you look at the flood story, you'll find traces of all three calendars: 5 months as 150 days means 30-day months, ie a 360-day year. When the whole flood cycle finshed a year and ten days after it started, the scribe who wrote it that way was correcting from a 364-day calendar to a 354-day one, hence the year and ten days. The scribe was aware of the flood tradition found in Jubilees, which clearly used a 364-day year and made the flood cycle a nice round year. Jubilees not strangely was written in the 2nd c. BCE, when our evidence points to a 364-day calendar being in use.

Just a sidelight to the 364-day calendar used by the Temple, try your hardest, using that calendar to find one prophecy in Ezekiel which fell on a sabbath. Try. You'll find not one. When Ezekiel was written, it used a 364-day calendar. So, when you talk about the Hebrews using a 360-day calendar, you need to justify when it was used and by whom. When Daniel gives good evidence to having been written in 164 BCE, what makes you think the book was using a 360-day calendar??


spin

spin

The 360-day calendar was a rough solar calendar with twelve months of 30 days which would be fiddled to match the observable yearly cycle which helped regulate agriculture.

The 364-day cycle was an attempt to maintain a theoretically perfect calendar which more closely matched the solar year. One can imagine a week being added every seven years to help it keep up, then further corrections.

The 354-day calendar was a lunar calendar in which they observed the arrival of the new moon for the start of a new month, then added a lunar cycle every three years to keep it close to the solar cycle.

Calendars can be theoretical or cultic and not reflect the real yearly cycle. The Egyptians at times had three or perhaps four different calendrical cycles in operation at the one time, each with a different purpose: civil, agricultural and cultic. During the second c. BCE it is probable that the Jews were using at least two, the 364-day cultic calendar and the 354-day civil calendar.


spin

Lafcadio

You have a point here, but I noticed two different behaviours.
If it's a controversial, insufficiently backedup, topic (like Trojan war), such arguments are not considered. Silence may be likely due to the lack of documents.
If it's upon some very well documented topic (greek or roman world), such arguments are considered. As the lack of documents, even significant, can be extrapolated to a degree. We have the words of some ancient erudites, so we know what is reasonable to ask from them to know and know not. And no ancient historian proves he can track other countries' history but those they strongly interacted with.
Indeed, it's a matter of what one expects, but nor me, nor other claim absolute truths here, just formulate hypothesis.

I don't know why. Why Herodotus mentions Nabonidus (Labynetus) and not Belshazzar? Do you think a part of Herodotus' text was destroyed? Maybe it was his own selection, or maybe he didn't hear about him. After all, the information came scarce, especially if you wouldn't travel to find it yourself. Probably Herodotus took this informations from an intermediary source (possibly persian). That may apply for a lot of historical informations that passed from Middle East to Greece.

Hebrew, not greek. Greeks seem to miss it and they are also geographically further away.

Maybe my formulation seems a bit bloated, considering he didn't replace his father role in yearly ceremonials, but he was the full administrator of Babylonia.

I don't understand where do you disagree with me because I mentioned that Nabonidus lost his grasp due to his long absence, not because his left. This is a becoming process not an abrupt status change. Nabonidus chronicle mentions repeatedly: nth year - king in Theima, prince in Akkad, yearly ceremonials were not held. I expect this had a large impact not only on people, but also on clergy and noblemen.

Tradition means stories, not pure records. "the prophet from the babylonian court" could have been such a story (bunch of stories) which was (were) "dressed" with political conotations during Maccabeans.

Chris Weimer

For what it's worth, both Nabonidus and Nebuchadnezzar, though I'm not sure about information regarding Belshazzar in the scrolls. Maybe, spin, you could enlighten us there?

Lafcadio

The thing is that Western Roman Empire didn't start to dismember in 476, because it was already. Some populations like huns, were already dead in 476 (replaced by gepids in Panonnia). The avars didn't show up in 5th century, only in the end of the 6th century almost at the same time with slavs. Also I'm not sure that before 476 angles, jutes and saxons really occupied roman territory, or just were roaming around preparing for their jump in the abandoned Britannia. So it's difficult to draw a map, but when drawn must be limited by time. Europe in 5th century is significantly different than the one from 6th. And if we'd relate each population to the fall of Western Roman Empire, things will get even more complicated.




Come on, don't give me these authority calls! Encyclopaedia Britannica is by no means the authority in matter of history, rather in matter of anything, since it's intended to be a compilation for general knowledge.
Regarding barbaric invasions in Europe I recommend you Lucien Musset and Pierre Riche, regarding the history of papacy I recommend you Harald Zimmermann's book which follows closely Liber Pontificalis.

Papal historiography (see above) starts with Damasus I. I don't see why that supertitle (if it's true it was first attributed to Vigilius first - I don't know) makes a difference.

What exactly are you talking about? Care to be more specific?

Millions?

spin

We don't have the means to go beyond the traditions such as the Trojan War. It is vain to build speculation on speculation (or formulate "hypotheses" on "hypotheses").

I don't think that you can make any generalisations here.

Perhaps you are starting to see some reason for difference: Herodotus made enquiries because he didn't know but wanted to find out more, though was reliant on the information he received, so missed all sorts of information. Jewish traditions weren't about enquiries, they were either held or absorbed. Herodotus was starting on the road to the writing of history the Jews at this stage weren't.

So are you arguing that it's not difficult to understand that the Hebrews could maintain a tradition which included Belshazzar, though get the facts muddled up and think that he was the son of Nebuchadnezzar, just as they confused Nebuchadnezzar with the anti-Nabonidus propaganda (which you apparently take as literal)?

So how was he any different from a satrap?

Nabonidus didn't lose his grasp. This is just propaganda against the loser. He was following definite policy in his efforts to guarantee trade via the south. He had no tie to Babylon requiring him to stay there. The Chaldeans had settled further south and had extended their control to the north until they took over Babylon.

Sure.

Fine. So, you should find nothing remarkable in the muddled recollection of Belshazzar found in Daniel.


spin

spin

Well, umm, nothing that I know of.


spin

Jack the Bodiless

Jim:
You mean "desperate apologists world-wide", I think.
Indeed! How naive of me to read "483 days" as "483 days".
Actually, it IS speaking of prophecy. It's an early attempt to resolve the failed prophecy of the imminent return of JC:
I've seen it before, yes. I expect that many Biblical scholars are "aware" of it in that sense. But there is still no scriptural support for the notion of arbitrarily assuming that any given prophet really means "years" when he mentions "days".

And I think you're still confusing "desperate apologists" with "Biblical scholars" here.
...Except that it doesn't work. You seem to have missed my point.

The period from 538 AD to 1798 AD is 1260 modern calendar years. This means that it must be MORE than 1260 "360-day prophetic years".

1260 x 365.25 / 360 = 1278 "prophetic years"

Lafcadio

I didn't ment necessarily a legendary event, a real history of Panonnia between huns and magyars is also difficult to shape. There are plenty of gaps in universal history and not all are covered by legends. I tried to address a famous one, maybe it's my fault that it was interpreted as purely from a legend/speculation's point of view.

I don't follow you. Generalizations like "ancient greeks didn't know American continent/nubian history/gunpowder technology" ?

Of course, but no one claimed the contrary

The muddling could have happen much later when two threads of information regarding late Babylonian empire (about Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar) collapsed into one. Also the "son of" addition could be a later addition for different purpose considering the not too distant presences of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar and their similar position (rulers of Babylon). I reckon from my own's country traditionals tales a lot of fabulous justificative connections between historical characters. This is one characteristic of the "legendarization"
What you call as anti-Nabonidus propaganda I'm afraid it's just a view. He was the ruler of Babylon (which was the capital). Someone who obviously didn't know where Nabonidus was and what was the reason he was away of Bablyon so long could easily take Belshazzar as a king. What other reasons would have the hebrews to mention Belshazzar as king and not Nabonidus?

I have only two sources of information. Nabonidus chronicle and the history written by some secular dudes (some of my books date since the communist period, they were anything but religiously propagandistic).

Babylon was empire's capital not a provence's

Rereading Nabonidus chronicle, he even didn't attend his mother's burial, but his son. I have an image of isolation of Nabonidus in arabian desert.

I am not even sure he was there for a trade route. Perhaps he tried to put up a rebellion. But spending about 10 years in a distant corner of the empire is no sign of control.

I always find remarkable the long chain of mutations in human culture