Celsus

Hi YHWHtruth,
You give a stock reply? Well here's my stock response to that:

[stock response]
It's the typical apologetic response to trot out a ridiculous non sequitur like the above as if that is proof that the argument from silence is completely irrational. What these arguments typically do is ignore the vast difference between archaeology a century ago and now, thereby revealing their ideological intent through false analogies. A century on, we have a much fuller account of the records which makes the silence glaring. Back then, archaeology was just getting off its feet and there were gaping holes everywhere to be found. From the work of Albright onwards, culminating in Kathleen Kenyon's stratigraphical system, archaeology has uncovered so much that an argument from silence is in a completely different category than it might have been once. This apologetic is thus a typical misconstrual of the evidential arguments that we have today. Most importantly however, a sure sign of proper science is the ability to discard falsified arguments, something apologists love to focus on, but could never themselves admit. Meanwhile, their hypocrisy is exposed as they clutch desperately to whatever gaps are left behind, twisting them with unwarranted speculations to prove their theological agenda.
[/stock response]

To claim that Babylonian archaeological evidence is "scanty" now is mindbogglingly outdated as a claim. Not only do we have lists of kings, we have a good idea of their religious and cultural practices, political institutions, language, technology, etc. etc. Just as Hitzig may have been wrong, we should also note the likes of Albright erring on the side of optimism, but of course, no apologist will ever admit to this either. Remember also, that archaeology does not deal with proof but with plausibility. And in this case, the plausibility (not to be confused with possibility) of an accurate Daniel is simply vanishingly small.
No it wouldn't. How many wives did Nabonidus have? What are the original references for this claim? Where does it say that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadrezzar's daughter? Do you know anything about the conclusion that Nabonidus may have been mentally unstable? This may be convincing to the incredulous True Believer, but woefully inadequate for scholars or skeptics.
What you don't mention is revealing. Firstly, to compare it with Matthew, a Greek text, is both a linguistic nonargument, and a presupposition that the Matthean text is accurate (or a circular argument since you're arguing for the accuracy of the Judeo-Christian texts in general). Both are completely unsupportable. Secondly, we should note that the author of Daniel misses out a 6 year period involving two kings: Amel Marduk and Nergal Shar Usur. Finally, the convolution of such an argument speaks for itself. Apparently, the argument from twisting the silence is compelling when it supports the apologist's theological agenda.
Nonsense. Berossus is in the same historiographical tradition as the Bible, and the parallels between them are striking. Obviously, both are littered with myths and legends. Secondly, Herodotus is a considerable source, outlining many events and making many descriptions, including records of Darius' (not the Mede) campaigns against the Greeks. For more on Daniel, see my posts in this thread. Notably, let me extract a good summary:

• For many centuries the apocalyptic character of the Book of Daniel was overlooked, and it was generally considered to be true history, contained genuine prophecy. In fact, the book was included among the prophetic books in the Greek canon. 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 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. By contrast, the book is a not inconsiderable historical source for the Greek period. It refers to the desecration of the Temple in 167 [BCE] and possibly to the beginning of the Maccabean revolt. Only when the narrative reaches the latter part of the reign of Antiochus [IV Epiphanes] do notable inaccuracies appear--an indication of a transition from history to prediction. The book is thus dated between 167 and 164 BCE.
  
  Other considerations that point to this 2nd-century date are the omission of the book from the prophetic portion of the Hebrew canon, the absence of Daniel's name in the list of Israel's great men in Ecclesiasticus [The Wisdom of Jesus, son of Sirach], the books linguistic characteristics, and its religious thought, especially the belief in the resurrection of the dead with consequent rewards and punishments.
  
  Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1989, 15th edition, "Biblical Literature", Vol. 14, p. 803

Daniel is a pseudegraph, not the story of a Biblical hero your Sunday school teachers tell you about.
This is argument is silly. The Bible does not mention a "King of Babylon" as a title for either Cyrus or Darius. If you're willing to make unsupported speculations about Gubaru being Darius, you'll have to establish some linguistic/etymological connection, otherwise all methodology flies out the window (although that's not surprising with apologists really--where's the argumentation and evidence from your "researcher"?). Also the appointment of satraps was a common Persian practice from Egypt to Babylon (which almost resulted in Cyrus being deified by the Egyptians) as part of their decentralised rule. In other words, Darius' and Gubaru's appointments of satraps proves precisely nothing about them being the same person.
Not at all. Occam's razor (and also Geza Vermes' rule of thumb that interpretations should spring from the text rather than be imposed on the text--this is not a license to accept things as literal however) leads us to dismiss the book of Daniel as a fictional account full of anachronisms. Remember, I'm labelling Darius the Mede as fictitious, but the simplest explanation is that the author of Daniel got his Darius the Mede wrong, and actually meant Darius I the Persian and father (not son) of Xerxes.

Joel

lpetrich

Arguments from silence are much-ridiculed by apologists, but I do think that they are useful when used carefully.

One should ask: would the source have recorded something when it was present?

For the Crucifixion sky darkening, I believe that that would have been the case for all five nonbiblical historians I had mentioned, especially the first three of them. Take Pliny the Elder. He had had an omnivorous interest in the world around him, and his only surviving work is the aforementioned encyclopedic treatise Natural History. But some of that treatise's contents were worthy of the National Enquirer:

(The Smithsonian's review).

More to the point, he had written about meteorological and astronomical phenomena like St. Elmo's fire and eclipses. So he would have thought that the Crucifixion darkening well worth mentioning if he had seen it, or if he had known about it.

Though I have not read that book, nobody else has ever claimed that Pliny had written about that Crucifixion darkening.

Much the same arguments apply for Philo and Josephus. Both gentlemen had written volumes about history and contemporary affairs, including the career of Pontius Pilate, Philo could easily have seen that darkening, and Josephus could easily have learned about that darkening.

Those two gentlemen had also discussed King Herod, but neither of them had mentioned his alleged massacre of baby boys. Even though Josephus had described Herod as having become paranoid and murderous, which would make that massacre completely in character.

Magus55

Sodom and Gomorrah:

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-abr/abr-a007.html


The ruins of Sodom and Gomorrah have been discovered southeast of the Dead Sea. The modern names are Bab edh-Dhra, thought to be Sodom, and Numeira, thought to be Gomorrah. Both places were destroyed at the same time by an enormous conflagration. The destruction debris was about three feet thick. What brought about this awful calamity? Startling discoveries in the cemetery at Bab edh-Dhra revealed the cause. Archaeologists found that buildings used to bury the dead were burned by a fire that started on the roof.
What would cause every structure in the cemetery to be destroyed in this way? The answer to the mystery is found in the Bible. "Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah -- from the Lord out of the heavens" (Genesis 19:24). The only conceivable explanation for this unique discovery in the annals of archaeology is that burning debris fell on the buildings from the air. But how could such a thing happen?

There is ample evidence of subterranean deposits of a petroleum-based substance called bitumen, similar to asphalt, in the region south of the Dead Sea. Such material normally contains a high percentage of sulfur. It has been postulated by geologist Frederick Clapp that pressure from an earthquake could have caused the bitumen deposits to be forced out of the earth through a fault line. As it gushed out of the earth it could have been ignited by a spark or surface fire. It would then fall to earth as a burning, fiery mass.

It was only after Clapp formulated this theory that Sodom and Gomorrah were found. It turns out that the sites are located exactly on a fault line along the eastern side of a plain south of the Dead Sea, so Clapp's theory is entirely plausible. There is some evidence for this scenario from the Bible itself. Abraham viewed the destruction from a vantage point west of the Dead Sea. The Bible records what Abraham saw: "He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace" (Genesis 19:28). Dense smoke suggests smoke from a petroleum-based fire. Smoke rising like smoke from a furnace indicates a forced draft, such as would be expected from subterranean deposits being forced out of the ground under pressure.

Toto

This hardly constitutes proof of Sodom or Gomorrah.

http://www.ofspirit.com/tw-theviewfromnebo.htm

Abraham lives, but it still remains extraordinarily difficult to determine conclusively the origins of such an ancient religious figure based on archaeological evidence. In 1975, around the same time of the Ebla discoveries and the publication of the books questioning the patriarchal narratives, two American professors, R. Thomas Schaub and Dr. Walter Rast, led an expedition to the southeastern section of the Dead Sea in Jordan in the hope of finding the lost cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. . .

Over the course of the next fifteen years, Schaub and Rast out-lasted all the academic disputes, managing to excavate and identify over thirty sites, from walled towns to huge cemeteries, dating from the earliest historical period through the Islamic era. The two cities that they speculate might be Sodom and Gomorrah are Bab edh-Dhra', the largest of the towns that grew up along the southeastern shore of the Dead Sea, and its neighbor, Numeira.

Both date to the Early Bronze Age, around 3300-2100 b.c.e. This dating places them far earlier than the traditionally accepted time period for when Abraham might have lived. At an earlier time, the archaeologists probably would have insisted that despite the chronological discrepancy, the sites were the Bible's Sodom and Gomorrah. In fact, in their report about the early work at the sites, Schaub and Rast had made just such an argument. Over the years they tempered their initial enthusiasm and became much more cautious about drawing conclusions.

. . . around 2350 B.C.E., the city came to a sudden and violent end. No one is certain what precipitated the community's demise — it could have been an earthquake, a military attack from outsiders, or some sort of natural disaster or plague. . . . There was nothing in the sites themselves that might conclusively link them to the biblical traditions, but Schaub points out that Bab edh-Dhra' and Numeira had not been inhabited again after they were destroyed. The ruins were right there on the surface. "People passing by could have seen it, the desolation would have been evident to all," says Schaub. He says it is not hard to imagine the kind of history the Bible's authors could infer from such dramatic wreckage. The valley must have seemed cursed by God. The tradition of Sodom and Gomorrah "probably does go back to some historical event," says Schaub. "But at this stage we will never know what it was."

{emphasis added}

Magus55

I see, of course - anything I post is completely wrong - but if comes from you guys - its automatically right. Just making sure I understand the double standard...

gcameron

Do you mean Pliny would have seen the sky darkening directly as a young boy? Mightn't he have been napping, or indoors poring over some scroll or other? Young boys, even clever ones, are easily distracted too; no reason to suppose he would have made especial note of it.

Though I suppose it would have been talked about by his friends/neighbors/family in subsequent hours. So he'd have known about it sooner or later, but does this guarantee he'd have written it down? Surely he must have omitted some things in his books.

Mightn't this strange "darkening" have been assumed by some just to be an eclipse -- not quite a "run of the mill" event in those days, but not outrageously unusual either?

Magus55

Thats probably what people thought it was from, an eclipse - the only problem is - Passover is on the full moon - and its impossible to have an eclipse under a full moon.

Peter Kirby

Moreover, an eclipse does not last for three hours. This would make it all the more remarkable and worthy of mention to naturalists and historians.

best,
Peter Kirby

WinAce

It was asserted that Belshazzar didn't exist??

Um, no offense, but WTF? I distinctly remember a work by Xenophon that mentioned him that was known from earlier than Jesus' time.

Peter Kirby

There's also a rumor that it was asserted that Pilate did not exist. Apologists can't even get their calumnies straight.

http://shefchurch.org/WhatWeBelieve/Bible.htm
One such example was the historical existence of Pontius Pilate—who’s name could not be found anywhere outside the Bible for over a thousand years. Skeptics challenged that the Bible writers were in error (deliberate or accidental) and that Pilate didn’t exist, and could never have been Roman Governor in Israel at the time of Christ’s death.

Of course, Philo and Josephus have been known to scholars for nearly two thousand years, and both of them mention Pilate.

best,
Peter Kirby