ax

I don't know if it's correct but a friend showed me this to help convince me of god's existance and the "truthfulness" of the bible, well anyho, here it is.<a href="http://users.cwnet.com/dalede/dan11.htm" target="_blank">daniel 11 fullfiled</a>
I'm not a troll so don't worry. I'm just interested if it's true or not and your thought on this matter.

K

ax,

I'll let others deal with the prophesies themselves, but I want to ask you a question.

Does it really only take an ancient text that claims to have made correct prophesies about ancient events to convince you of the reality of the supernatural being it proposes?

Would you lend the same creedance to the Oracle at Delphi or any other ancient claim to prophesy and the deities associated with that claim?

ax

No it would not. As you have observed, many ancient cultures with religious beliefs have prophecied things that came to be. They can show that the "author" may have been the instagator or on the inside of the whole thing or..(obviously) written after the event. But these prophecies interest me as they seem very conclusive and detailed. I'm not good on my history so I thought maybe you people were. Personaly belief in a god seems emotionaly understandable, but not intellectualy coherent. The existance of god does not depend on what can be imagined, but what can be experienced. but I'm getting of the point.

MortalWombat

It's kind of easy to claim a prophesy is fulfilled when it was written after the fact. Daniel was written in the 2nd century BC, not the 6th century BC as prophesy nuts claim.

<a href="http://www.westminster.edu/staff/brennie/daniel.htm" target="_blank">http://www.westminster.edu/staff/brennie/daniel.htm</A>

Wyz_sub10

The prophecies are so general that they may be applied to hundreds of situations.

This is ridiculously general. Take the website author's interpretation:

He assumes Daniel is bypassing stright to Alexander. Why? Because the prophecy fails if it applies to Xerxes' successor. Further, I'm not going to quibble over geography and cultural specifics, but go tell a Macedonian that Alexander was Greek and see what response you get.

There are two problems with this.

First, the prophecy says the king will have great dominion, not the prince. So why does the website guy argue the prince was stronger and, therefore, this proves the prophecy? Maybe I'm missreading that.

But the second point remains - Seleucus' domnion paled beside Alexander's. Why, then, is there no difference noted in the prophecy? Indeed, tthis verse almost suggestes that the former's dominion will be greater.

In the end, there are just too many general comments here - a king will be great, a dominion will be great, someone shall stumble, someone shall stand up, someone goes, someone comes - to conclude that it pertains to any one storyline. I'm sure with enough work I could make this into the story of the Kennedys or the Romanovs or the Plantanginets or whatever.

Celsus

It's a big leap from Daniel 11:31 to verse 32. The stuff about Antiochus Epiphanes up to 11:31 is accurate possibly up to verse 35, and thus scholars can fairly accurately date Daniel to be written between 168 and 165 BCE, since that's where the prophetic accuracy drops off. Notice in verse 36 that 'the King' still refers to Antiochus IV. However, whoever wrote that website chose it to describe Herod the Great, which is of course, the point of departure from just about everyone else, and thus we enter the realm usually inhabited by Nostradamus disciples. Interpretive prophecy. 'Daniel' does mention in detail the violation and desecration of the Second Temple as described in 2 Maccabees 5:15-16:

cf. Daniel 11:31:
However, 'Daniel' does not notice its restoration by Judas Maccabees two or three years later (165 BCE) even though that would be a vital theme to his book.

cf. 2 Maccabees 10:1-4:
The rest of the chapter describes the celebrations they held, and of course, if the prophecies in Daniel are to be accurate, then the Judeans must not have had much free will (note my emphases in the passage above).

Now of course if Daniel hadn't noticed this important part of his 'prophetic vision', he wouldn't have realised that Antiochus was to die two years after the restoration of the Temple(which the website does acknowledge when describing verse 30). So verse 36 refering to this same king, and there is no reason to believe that Daniel is refering to anyone else, follows with utter apocalyptic gibberish.

How do we know that Daniel was written at a late date? Anachronisms. Plenty to be found all over:

Daniel 1:1 - Jehoiakim is described surrendering Jerusalem to Nebudchadrezzar, but in fact, he's already dead! (see 2 Kings 24:1-10)

Daniel 3:5 - The Greek word 'symphonia' is used when describing the music played to Nebuchadrezzar. The Greeks only had any kind of widespread influence after Alexander defeated the Persians.

Daniel 5:11 - Belshazzar is said to be the son of Nebuchadrezzar and a king. He was actually the son of Nabonidus (who succeeded Nebuchadrezzar), and served as regent while Nabonidus went touring the Middle East. He never became king.

Daniel 9:1 - Darius is refered to as the son of Xerxes/Ahasuerus, and 'by birth a Mede'. He was actually the father of Xerxes/Ahasuerus, and a Persian, not a Mede.

So thus we can conclude that Daniel's prophecies were reliable only up to a certain point. And of course the attempt by Dale DePriest to ascribe the prophecies to Herod are laughable. Why not ascribe them to Julius Caesar, or Claudius, or Nero, or Caligula? They would probably all fit just as well with a bit of poetic license. Finally, the poor grasp of history by the writer of Daniel implies that the Holy Spirit wasn't very good at getting contemporary facts right, while being very good at getting future facts right. Or with Occam's Razor, we might just conclude that the author lived much closer to (in fact, during) the time of Antiochus than he did to Daniel.

(edited for clarification)

[ October 24, 2002: Message edited by: joejoejoe ]</p>