Vorkosigan

In the Greek histories, Nabonidus' wife has an Egyptian name. She is not known from any Babylonian record. Who she really was, is unknown. It is entirely possible that she was Nebuchadnezzar's daughter, but there is no evidence for that.

Vorkosigan

Vorkosigan

The oldest copies of Daniel that we have (Qumran) contain pieces of every chapter except 12, which is likely not represented because the end of the scroll was more suceptible to loss.

Daniel 12 is quoted in 4Q174.

Vorkosigan

They do represent, however, the many traditions that coalesced around the mythical Daniel. Some of them made it into the canon, some did not.

FunkyRes

Show me one shred of evidence that Daniel ever existed in a form without some of the content in the Qumran scrolls (1-12 as in the MT).

There isn't any.

It's a hypothesis with no supporting evidence, either physical or from within the text itself or from outside texts.

Michael Ledo

Okay my two cents worth from BB:


Daniel
“In all the details of the book [Daniel] no historical error has ever been proven.” –Josh McDowell


Outside of Revelation, Daniel is the most read book of prophecy. How accurate is this text? What did it really mean? Is it historically correct? These are justifiable questions for any ancient text. Some of the records we have recovered are the tablets of Cyrus. These were written in clay and baked into brick. These are the old original “authentic” texts considered by scholars to be the most historically accurate since they reflect government and business transactions and not some religious dogma. How does Daniel compare to these texts and Greek documents?

The dating of Daniel is placed between the years 167-164 B.C., due to its inaccurate description of the downfall of Antiochus IV, of which the author seemed unaware (Dan. 11:40-45). Antiochus did not conquer Egypt (11:42-45), but suffered from a humiliating withdrawal on Roman orders in 167 B.C. This is a famous story. Popilius, the Roman envoy, drew a circle in the sand around Antiochus. He demanded that the king give his answer to meet the Roman demand to withdraw before he left the circle. He withdrew. Antiochus died while campaigning in Persia.

 Daniel was written by five different authors. The fifth one wrote in Greek, chapters 13 and 14. These chapters made it into the Roman Catholic Bible, but not the King James Bible. Three of the authors wrote in Aramaic. The fourth wrote in Hebrew (Dan 1:1-2:4a and 8:1-12:13). Fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls attest to this bilingual fact. The reader of Daniel should take note of the constant flip-flopping of the point of view of the author from first person to third person omnipresent, indicating multiple authors.
 
The first Daniel author wrote chapters three and four. It is paralleled to the story of Joseph in Egypt (Daniel = Joseph, Babylon = Egypt, Nebuchadezzar = Pharaoh). Joseph/Daniel interpret the king’s dreams. They are elevated in status. The Pharaoh changed Joseph’s name to Zaphnathpaaneah (Gen. 41:45). Daniel’s was changed by Nebuchdezzar to Belteshazzar (Dan. 4:8). The original story of Daniel comes from a poem in northern Syria dated 1500 B.C. It is part of the Ugarit texts recovered in 1930-1931. It is sometimes titled the “Epic of Daniel” or “The Tale of Aqhat.”
 
The hero in this story is likewise named Daniel. He is the son of God (El). This is the Daniel referred to by Ezekiel (Eze. 14:14, 14:20, 28:3). Daniel’s consort is Anath, the Caananite war-goddess. Joseph married Asenath (=Anath) in Gen. 41-45.
 
Third Daniel wrote the rest of chapter two and the apocalypse of chapter seven. Much of this was retroactive prophecy. The great image of Dan. 2:31-35 is well popularized; a man made of various elements symbolizing different kingdoms. The gold head was Nebuchadnezzar. The silver chest was the Median Empire. The bronze torso was Persia. The iron legs are the Macedonian Empire beginning with Alexander the Great. The iron and clay mixture represented a time during the Antiochene period when an attempt was made to include Egypt in this kingdom. The elements involved in the statue are common in Zoroastrian imagery. (The metals and clay are in the exact order of cleanliness used in the Zend-Avesta.)
 
Chapter seven (used for today’s end time prophecy) was meant to be used as prophecy during Antiochus IV’s reign. The four beasts represented the four previous kingdoms, as did the statue in chapter two. The eleventh horn (7:8) that arose and destroyed the others can be attributed to Antiochus himself. (Puritans claimed that Charles Stuart, seventeenth century opponent, was the eleventh horn, while others claimed it was Adolf Hitler.) Antiochus will be destroyed by “one like the Son of man” (Dan. 8:13), and the kingdom restored. Antiochus was a bad fellow hated by the Jews. He attempted to destroy their culture. (Egypt’s culture was destroyed by Alexander.) He built an altar to Zeus in the Jerusalem temple. He stopped sacrifices to Yahweh. He abolished circumcision, dietary laws, and observance of the Sabbath. The temple treasury was raided. He ordered the destruction of Jewish scriptures. Refusal of any of these laws carried the death penalty. The time of this great kingdom was to be established “a thousand two hundred and ninety days…from the time the daily sacrifice shall be taken away” (Dan. 12:11). The persecution started in the winter of 167-166 B.C. This would put the beginning of the Magic Kingdom sometime in July/August 163 B.C. The Jews could not wait that long and revolted. The temple rights were restored Oct. 15, 164 B.C. by the Seleucid generals in a compromise. The Jews, still not satisfied, kept on fighting and invented Hanukkah on December 25, 164 B.C. when they purified the temple.
 
Second Daniel wrote chapters five and six. He murdered history. In 5:1-2 we have King Belshazzar as the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Belshazzar was never a king, he was a Prince Regent and son of Nabonidos, not Nebuchadnezzar. Dan 5:28 describes the kingdom as being divided between the Medes and the Persians. This never happened. The Medes and Babylon did share conquered Assyria in 612 B.C. Medes was then conquered by Cyrus the Great of Persia in 549 B.C. and later Cyrus conquered Babylon in 538 B.C. Babylon was never conquered by anyone named Darius the Median (5:31). History records no one by that name. There was a Darius I Hystapes, a Persian king (522-486 B.C.) who divided his kingdom into satrapies (Dan 6:1). He however did not conquer Babylon, but ruled it after Cyrus had conquered it. Prince Belshazzar did die in battle against Cyrus (not Darius). King Nabonidos, his father, lived on for another three months. Daniel claims in 9:1 Darius is the son of Ahasuerus (Xerxes). Darius is actually his father. In Daniel 1:1 The claim is made that Nebuchadnezzar came to Jerusalem in the “third year of the reign of Jehoiakim” (606 B.C.). Nebuchadnezzar did not come to power until a year later, and then did not make it to Jerusalem until 597 B.C. when Jehoiachin (Jehoiakim’s son) was in power (2 King 24:10).
 
The seventy weeks mentioned in 9:24 are actually 70 years. The temple was destroyed in 586 B.C. and restored under Darius in 516 B.C. (cross reference Jer. 25:11-14). It was decided somewhere along the line that 9:24-25 must foretell the coming of Jesus Christ, so Bibles were altered with no regard to the warning in Rev. 22:16. The 70 week/year period which would have ended long before Jesus arrived was changed in the “Revised Standard Version” to read “seventy weeks of years.” The Catholics went one step further in their “Living Bible” to put it simply at 490 years until the “kingdom of everlasting righteousness begins.” It will be 483 years from the time the command to rebuild Jerusalem begins until the Anointed One (Jesus) comes. The Jews started rebuilding in 516 B.C. (with or without a command), making the coming of the Messiah 33 B.C. (Did we miss it!) Some sources claim the rebuilding started in 538 B.C., making Jesus even less likely to be the Messiah.
 
A sensible explanation to Dan. 9:24-26 does exist. The first period of 490 years, verse 24, is the entire time starting from the sack of Jerusalem 597 B.C. until the coming of the Magic Kingdom. The seven weeks refer to the Babylonian exile period of 7 × 7 or 49 years (587-538 B.C.) The anointed one is Zerubbabel, a Davidic king who restores the temple under Darius (see the book of Haggai). The 62 weeks, verse 26, or 434 years represents a lesser time of the Persian and Hellenistic periods until Antiochus the desolator of verse 26 destroys the sanctuary and cuts off the last anointed one by replacing Onias III, the legitimate High Priest, with his own brother Jason (175 B.C.). Verse 27 concludes with the Temple cleansing in 164 B.C.

FunkyRes

This I covered.
Daniel _did_ correctly prophecy the downfall of A. IV E. in Chapter 8

What we have in chapter 11 after vs 32 is a complete change of focus in the prophecy- then after a few verses, returns to the compass soap opera, but is _not_ referring to A. IV E.

Quite possibly what is echoed there is the same as what is in Ezekiel 38

Why such a jump to the future?

After A. IV E. during the Maccabean era was the last time Israel really had autonomy.

Sauron

Daniel is incorrect about him - on several points.

Wrong on both counts. Belshazzar is mentioned in the Cyropedia, and was known to 18th century scholars from both that source, as well as Daniel.

Belshazzar was co-regent, ruling in his father's absence. But he was not king.

Being left in charge is not the same as being king. Especially in the Babylonian religious society, there were rituals and ceremonies that only the king could perform. Britannica:

It is now recognized, however, that the writer's knowledge of the exilic times was sketchy and inaccurate. His date for the fall of Jerusalem, for example, is wrong; Belshazzar is represented as the son of Nebuchadrezzar and the last king of Babylon, whereas he was actually the son of Nabonidus and, though a powerful figure, was never king; Darius the Mede, a fictitious character perhaps confused with Darius I of Persia, is made the successor of Belshazzar instead of Cyrus.

Moving along....

The Gobryas that was installed by Cyrus does not fit any such description for "Darius the Mede". Ignoring for the moment the fact that the names do not even match, the scope of Gobryas authority, vs. what Daniel claims for 'Darius the Mede', are totally at odds with each other.

However, Gobryas was not "made a ruler over Babylon," nor was he ever, as Daniel says, "king over the realm of the Chaldeans." He was instead merely a satrap, a regional governor, for a particular area. He was one of 20 satraps in the Achamaenid Empire.

Huh?

Of course it could be such a mistaken reference - that is what "mistake" means, after all.

The only way you can exclude the possibility that this is a mistaken reference to Darius the Great is to assume the infallibility of Daniel - which is the point you're trying to prove in the first place, I assume.

History tells us that not only are the Medes and Persians ethnically very close cousins, but for several years the Medes and Persians were linked in a short alliance. So it's entirely possible that the author of Daniel might have used the two nationalities interchangeably, especially if he were writing about events several hundred years after they allegedly happened. Darius the Mede never existed. But Darius the Persian did.


Did someone say that the name Xerxes was restricted from being used? Did I miss someone's comment someplace?

It is far more likely that Daniel 9:1 is a simple case of mistakenly transposing the father-son relationship between Xerxes and Darius. Especially since Darius the Mede never existed.

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Sauron ]

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Sauron ]

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Sauron ]</p>

Vorkosigan

Here's some quotes from Baldwin from <a href="http://home.earthlink.net/~ironmen/authorship.htm" target="_blank">here</a>. Interested readers can judge for themselves whether her point of view is largely apologetic in nature:

“In concluding this section on the historical assumptions of the writer of the book of Daniel I strongly assert that there is no reason to question his historical knowledge. The indications are that he had access to information which has not yet become available to the present–day historian, and that where conclusive proof is still lacking he should be given the credit for reliability.” [p. 29]

“When all the relevant factors are taken into account, including the arguments for the unity of the book, a late sixth– or early fifth–century date of writing for the whole best suits the evidence.” [p. 46]

“The historical interpretation is surely correct in seeing a primary fulfillment in Daniel’s prophecy in the second century BC, but to confine its meaning to that period is to close one’s eyes to the witness of Jesus and the New Testament writers in general that it also had a future significance.” [p. 173]

“With regard to prophecy as foretelling, the church has lost its nerve.” [p. 185]

“Is There Pseudonymity in the Old Testament?” Themelios, Vol. 4:1 (Sept 1978) pp. 6–12.

“In conclusion we contend that there is no clear proof of pseudonymity in the Old Testament and much evidence against it. When a writer made use of a literary convention, as in the case of Qoheleth, he made it abundantly plain that that was was what he was doing. So far as the book of Daniel is concerned there is no hint of such a thing, nor did the Old or New Testament church which included the book in the Canon suspect it. If the historical setting provided by the text is accepted there is no reason for postulating pseudonymity, and the task of proving that the book is in any part pseudonymous must rest with those who confidently make the claim.” [p. 12]

Joyce Baldwin (1921-1995) was Dean of Women at Trinity College in Bristol and the author of several commentaries on the OT books. She served as a translator for the New Living Translation for the Book of Daniel (among other books)

FunkyRes

Joyce Baldwin is one of the most respected scholars of Early Israel History.

Just because she has faith in God and stands up for what she believes is the truth, to the opposition of liberal scholars, does not discredit her excellent scholarship of Aramaic any more that Einstein's denial of Entropy (God does not play dice) or Newton's assertation of God through the Thumb (which he claims was too complex to exist without a creator) make them poor physicists.

In her Tyndale commentaries, she tended to translate many passages herself where she felt the RSV got it wrong, and would often comment on things that a translation just could not capture.

To discredit her, find a big booboo in one of those

FunkyRes

Is it?
Or could Darius the Great have chosen to name his son after the Father of the man he was named after?

Careful when you say Darius the Mede never existed.
We never have mention of anyone by that name outside the context of Daniel.

But people said the same thing about Beltshazzar.
And Daniel has been vindicated.

Are you aware of how little we actually know from that era?

Don't be too surprised if at some point Darius the Mede is identified, and suddenlt everything snaps together.

If he is, I'm betting he's the same guy as Guburu.