For Example the Hairy He-Goat is very precise? I have read some works on the subject but would like your input.
How credible is the dating of Daniel?
by itsibitsybrainbutbigenoughtosmellarat 52 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Christ Alone
The majority of textual scholars say that Daniel was written ca. 536-530 BC. The book predicts much of middle eastern history from 605BC to 165BC. Many skeptics reject the dates of 536-530 because the predictions are so detailed that it could not have been written so early.
Historians don't dispute the 4 kingdoms predicted in Daniel 11 because archaeology and ancient history confirms their existence exactly as predicted (i.e Herodotus in ca 200 BC).
Many skeptics have claimed that Daniel was actually written around 165BC. However, it was proven incorrect in light of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scross. They provide copies of Daniel that are dated over 200 years before the date given by skeptics. They show that the predictions recorded in Daniel 11 already existed before 165 BC.
We know that Jesus spoke of Daniel, so the book existed before His time.
I believe the general view of skeptics is that Daniel was an evolving book. Portions were written early, others later.
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watson
By researching the vast source information from the Watchtower Society, you will find all the answers you need.
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bohm
Lol @ christ alone. According to wikipedia:
The traditional theory that Daniel was the original author of the Book of Daniel has been disputed by recent scholars. [3] Although the book has been historically classified as prophetic , the style of writing is apocalyptic which was popular between 200 BCE and 100 CE. [4]
Provide evidence ofyour claim " The majority of textual scholars say that Daniel was written ca. 536-530 BC". Who was the father of the lie again?
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sir82
They provide copies of Daniel that are dated over 200 years before the date given by skeptics.
Really? I've not seen any reference claiming that any of the Dead Sea scroll documents can be dated to 365 BC (or earlier).
Do you have a link?
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bohm
juhu christ alone! Are you just going to lie a bit and then run away? Im pretty weak in the theological department, but im pretty sure jesus is supposed to be able to tell you are telling a lie even when its on the internet.
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Christ Alone
*sigh* Really? You want to ask a question and then call "liar" in the same sentence? Nice attitude. And then when I take 15 mins to respond, you say that I'm running away? Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, did we? Documents written in 5th century BCE Egypt reveal unique textual and linguistic styles from that era. These documents are called the Elephantine Papyri. By comparing the texts of the Elephantine Papyri to the texts of Daniel, scholars have concluded that the textual style of Daniel places the book within the era of the 5th or 6th century BCE. Even skeptics accept that the style of writing would place the book of Daniel centuries earlier than the 2nd century BCE. Another textual evidence that Daniel was written centuries before 165 BCE are the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls (written from 150bc to 50ce). Scholarly comparison of the unique textual and linguistic styles support that Daniel was written centuries before the Dead Sea Scrolls. Dating Daniel to 165 BCE is not credible. The date for writing the book of Daniel must be pushed back to match the text and linguistic style of the 5th or 6th century BCE. Josephus called Daniel, "...one of the greatest of the prophets". (Antiquites Book 10, Chapter 11, paragraph 7) Since Josephus lived in the years 37 to 100 CE, he is closer to that reality. Regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, eight copies of Daniel were found at the Qumran community with one copy dated to 125 BCE using carbon dating techniques. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that Daniel was written in 165 BCE. Would people living in 165 BCE accept Daniel as a prophet if Daniel was written at that time? Would Daniel be renowned as a prophet if it were known that he had lived a mere 40 years earlier? In that event, he would have been a contemporary person writing fiction. Refer to "The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible" translated and with commentary by Martin Abegg, Jr., Peter Flint & Eugene Ulrich, 1999, page 484. Internal textual evidence that compares the book of Daniel to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls are known to have been written in the era of 170 BCE to 50 CE. There is a definitive textual style and linguistics for this era. However, the textual style and linguistics for the book of Daniel are very different. Both conservative and liberal scholars acknowledge that the textual style and linguistics for the book of Daniel supports that it was written centuries before the Dead Sea Scrolls community came to exist. There are 2 sets of scholars. The majority of the TEXTUAL scholars that refer to the text itself show it to be written in the 6th century due to the reasons stated above. Others believe it to have been written during the Maccabean revolt during 168-64bc. Evidence in the work to suggest this later date includes the use of Persian and Greek words that may not have been known by sixth-century residents of Babylon;; the use of the word Chaldean to signify a caste of wise men, astrologers, and magicians. However, each of these issues have been commented on by the scholars that hold to a 5th or 6th century view.
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bohm
Christ alone: I cant really be bothered to answer your piss-poor evidence in favor of an early date; all you are doing is a retreat to the possible and trying to sell the truly extraordinary over the mundane by a few facts which can be explained any which way.
It wont convince any reasonable person of the miraculeous and it wouldnt convince you if it were any other book than the bible.
What i do want to point out that this statement of yours: "The majority of textual scholars say that Daniel was written ca. 536-530 BC" need support and you havent given it.
BTW, you have now also revealed a double standard: You have tacitly admitted the majority of scholars disagree with you, but you still want to make an argument from authority by claiming the majority of a certain subset of scholars -- you claim -- agree with you.
This is intellectually dishonest of you. Its called a double standard. Guess everything goes in the name of jesus?
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kepler
Personally, I am inclined to disagree with practically everything Christalone said above.
About seven months ago engaged in a long discussion/debate with several other posters about the nature of Daniel:
If you do not want to search through those pages, here are some more recent comments.
How you determine what the "majority" of Biblical scholars believe is going out on a limb. Let me illustrate:
Back in the late 19th century in America when Russell and Rutherford immigrated from their Presbyterian upbringings to that of the 2nd Adventist fold, the Baptist and Presbyterian founded seminaries and universities were sending their instructors to Europe to study Biblical languages at the centers of classical and archeological study. Two such emissaries returned with their viewpoints transformed: Baptist Crawford Russell Troy and Presbyterian Charles Augustus Briggs. Each after studying at the University of Berlin reported back that most of what was believed as inerrant ( such as Daniel) was very doubtful and did not hold up well to the same scrutiny given to other documents of antiquity. They were among the first Americans to be introduced to Europe's New High Criticism of the Bible. Troy found an academic appointment elsewhere and Presbyterians majorities subsequently tried Briggs for heresy. The point being, the majority of Biblical scholars who find Daniel to be essentially true have a vested interest in such. And there might even be a self-selecting process which has little to do with actual scholarship.
The genuine debate in the US about what evidence Briggs and Troy could cite was overtaken by the Darwinian controversies. Everyone too busy debating how related humans were to apes. Since Rutherford started his career with - and even dressed like William Jennings Bryan, who volunteered himself for the Scopes Trial prosecution, you can imagine what limb this forum is viewing the rest of the tree from.
Secular sources ( e.g., a typical encyclopedia such as Funk & Wagnalls or the Britannica ) would tend toward a 2nd century BCE origin, especially since Daniel does an awful job of "predicting" the past or the time one would assume he was writing the text ( when he is speaking in 1st person; sometimes it is in 3rd, or in Aramaic or Hebrew). Having recently audited a series of lectures on the Persian Empire, it is significant to note that the lecturer took exception to Daniel as a Persian empire source - even among Bible books - for the number of discrepancies in its narrative and the difficulty it had with identifying Persian or Babylonian kings. Near the end the lecturer spoke of how the Persian empire lived in the imagination of people with whom it had some contact. In this case, probably like that of the peoples of the US Atlantic seaboard with the British, Dutch and French colonies of the 17th century of which it once consisted.
As you will note in the above cross reference, much is made of Daniel's reference to Darius the Mede. And consequently, many in support of an apocalyptic view of past and future history come to the conclusion that there was an intermediate state between Cyrus the Persian and the last Babylonians which was run by this King. Daniel gives an account of his arrival in chapter 5 in variance at least with Isaiah (whom he never acknowledges). This state was not mentioned in Isaiah chapters 1-39 or the portions written much later, chapters 40-66.
One ancient historian backs up the author or authors of Daniel to a certain extent; that's Thucydies.
Thucydides at least, was convinced that decades before the Peloponnesian Wars that Greece was invaded by the Medes, and during that period, the time of the Battle of Marathon, the Persian king was King Darius. If you read the original or get the right translation, you will 50 or more examples of him calling the invaders Medes, even "Medianizing" Greeks.
The trouble is, that Darius in a monument 5o himself as big as Mt. Rushmore insists with documentation that he was a Persian. Not that it would have helped Daniel's case either way. This Darius (522-486 BC) followed Cyrus. In other words, the author of Daniel got his ancient history about Persia via the medium of Greek records. Second century BCE Judea was a Seleucid Greek province, ruled by the heirs of Alexander. Persecutions, desecration of the temple by a conqueror (Antiochus IV) and forced violations of food prohibitions are recorded in Maccabees more explicitly than the veiled references of Daniel. But Daniel seemed to have no idea of the outcome of the rebellion that followed.
The scrambling is pervasive. Whether Daniel arrives in Babylon in an early raid or after Jerusalem's fall, the text abounds with anachronisms. Even before Daniel graduates from school for Babylonian priests ( no astronomical information provided, but much about interpreting dreams), Daniel takes on a dream interpretation challenge in the second chapter and predicts a succession of kingdoms. The king is thankful for having this sorted out. He rewards Daniel and his fellow princes and professes his respect for Daniel's god. Nevertheless, if Daniel arrived "early", Nebuchadnezzar still eventually razes the Temple of this god to the ground and carries off the population of Jerusalem.
In the next chapter, (3), the King certainly has forgotten all about the god of Daniel and his set up an idol to which he calls all the governors including Daniel and his fellow Judaen princes... plus satraps of the kingdom to attend the dedication. ... SATRAPS. By the time SATRAPS are instituted by the Achaemenan-Persian empire (Darius I instituted a system of 20 of them), the captives in Babylon should have been freed to return to Judea to rebuild Jerusalem.
In chapter 8, the ram and he-goat are discussed in the context of an event in the 3rd year of King Belshazzar. Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus the last Neo-Babylonian king. So the chronicle is bogus - unless someone would like to provide a stone tablet in the British Museum or elsewhere that is dated to the reign of Belshazzar rather than his father. The calendar is based on kings; not their heirs or lieutenants.
In chapter 9, the entry is dated to the first year of Darius, son of Artaxerxes/Aheuserus. That would be Darius II. Daniel is still fretting about when the Hebrews will be allowed to return to Jerusalem. Obviously this is NOT Darius the Mede. But this Darius reigned from 423 to 404 BC. This is no longer an issue. Read Ezra.
This chapter also introduces one of criteria by which the Hebrews determined who was a "prophet" and who was not. Those active after the reign of Artexerxes were NOT - and the TaNaKh (the Hebrew Hebrew scriptures) reflects this by placing Daniel among the writings and not among the Prophets. Thus, for modern day Jews, it is not a question of dating Daniel, but whether it is simply a set of stories like other writings.
It should also be noted that as late as the 180s or 190s BCE when the Ecclesiasticus or Wisdom of Ben Sira was written, when the prophets are enumerated in chapters 46-49, Daniel is conspicuously absent.
That reference perhaps is made to Daniel in Ezekiel ( Danel or Daniel in translations 28:9), I would be inclined to doubt. If Daniel is indeed already the high servant of Nebuchadnezzar at the siege of Tyre, then why would Ezekiel adress the king (28:2-3): " So you are wiser than [he], no sage as wise as you..." Tyre did not fall as did Jerusalem and there is not much prophecy about these laments over Tyre either.
Finally, there is reference to Daniel in Matthew, chapter 24, the book and chapter from which most things WTS emanate. Nowhere else in the NT is Daniel's name used. Here it is:
"So when you see the appaling abomination of which the prophet Daniel spoke, set up in a holy place ( let the reader understand), then those in Judaea must escape to the mountains."
What Daniel spoke of, I argue as do many, were events recorded in Maccabees I and II. Jesus warns that they could happen again: desecrations in the Temple accompanied by war and terrible suffering. This unquestionably happened within three decades with the second destruction of the temple experienced under Roman siege. It's a separate issue of how the second temple destruction came to be predicted in the New Testament repeatedly. But it is strange, is it not, that in all the accounts of rebuilding the Temple, no OT prophets seem to step forward to speak of the second temple's eventual doom. And Christians for all of their pre-occupation with "prophecy" don't seem to give this issue much attention. Not the problem of the now favored, I suppose.
For the sake of apocalyptic theology, prophecy is woven into an elaborate garment that seems to go on and on. The inferences taken from Daniel and Revelation a millenia or two ago are different from the ones we take living millenia later. Yet we are united with people of the past by applying a morbid element of our imaginations in an exercise of futility - and making decisions that would not have been warranted otherwise.
Have to go.
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kepler
As things sometimes go, the debate moves on while we put together our replies to previous matters.
I note that in behalf of Daniel, the Elephantine letters are cited.
My understanding is that the majority of these letters are in Aramaic and languages associated with Egypt. Though the fort might date back to the time of Manesseh, it was not Manesseh who held in outpost on the upper Nile, but pharoahs under assault from a succession of Mesopotamian empires ( Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian and Persian). The records discussed are largely correspondence in the Persian period.
Sounds like an interesting line of argument, but I stand by what I submitted as well.