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Did Daniel predict the Roman Empire?
by City Fan 10 Replies latest watchtower bible
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City Fan
(Part 1)
Did the prophet Daniel predict the rise of the Roman Empire? And if he did, doesn't this show the book to be divinely inspired?
As JWs and ex-JWs we're used to seeing pictures of the image in Daniel chapter 2 with its head of gold, breast and arms of silver, belly and thighs of bronze, legs of iron and feet partly of iron and partly of clay. We're also familiar with the four beasts in Daniel chapter 7, the first a lion with eagles' wings, the second a bear, the third a leopard with four heads and four birds wings, and the fourth beast with its ten horns.
The explanation we were given is that these separate chapters represent the same four kingdoms of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and lastly Rome.Do an internet search on these chapters and you'll get hundreds of end-time religious sites with the same order of kingdoms and various speculations about the ten horns and the mixed iron and clay and what they might represent today. This tradition began in the time of the Romans with Josephus (ANT 10.10.4 ^209) who equated the third beast with Greece and the fourth beast with Rome.
So the question arises, if he did correctly predict the Roman Empire, doesn't this show that the prophet Daniel was divinely inspired?
History shows that the Assyrian Empire fell to the Medes under Cyaxares between 614 and 612 BC. Media then fell to Cyrus the Persian in 550 BC, eleven years before the fall of Babylon. So the next empire after Babylon was the Persian Empire which included the Medes. But to properly interpret the meaning of the four-kingdom prophecies we have to use Daniel's version of history, whether right or wrong, as well as look at the rest of the book and other Jewish writings for clues.
(continued..)
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City Fan
(Part 2)
The traditional Persian order of kingdoms was Assyria, Media, Persia and Greece. (see Herodotus I.95,130 and a Ktesias fragment in Diodorus Siculus 2.1-34). The sequence of Babylon, Media then Persia is also attested to in Jewish writings e.g. Tobit 14:4-7. Two writings from Roman times extend this sequence to five adding Greece then Rome. See Polybius (38.2), Dionysus (1.202.4), Tacitus (Hist 5.8-9) and Appian (Preface 9).
According to Daniel, the mysterious King 'Darius the Mede' rules in between the fall of Babylon and the rule of the Persians. Whether 'Darius the Mede' was a confusion with Darius I Hystaspes, or was a Median governor in Babylon called Gubaru, there is little doubt that the author of Daniel has the Medes second in the succession of powers between Babylon and Persia.
Other Jewish writings tend to confirm 'Darius the Mede' as Astyages, the last King of the Medes. Below there's a chart of the reigns of the Median and Persian kings between 625 BC and 466 BC.
Kings of Media: Kings of Persia:
Cyaxares (625-585BC) (Ahasuerus - Tobit 14:15)
614 Medes take Ashur
612 Medes and Babylonians take Nineveh.
Astyages (585-550BC) (Darius the Mede - Daniel 9:1 & Bel 1:1)
Cyrus II the Great (559-530BC)
Cambyses II (530-522BC)
Bardiya (522BC)
Darius I Hystaspes (522-486BC)
Xerxes I (486-466BC)
The book of Tobit 14:15 talks of the 'destruction of Nineveh, which Nebuchadnezzar and Ahasuerus had captured'. Daniel 9:1 calls Darius 'the son of Ahasuerus, by birth a Mede' and the apocryphal book Bel and the Dragon says: "When King Astyages was laid with his fathers, Cyrus the Persian received his kingdom.'
So according to Jewish tradition and the book of Daniel, Darius the Mede was Astyages, last King of the Medes, the son of Cyaxares who sacked Nineveh. Whether this view of history is correct or not is not important in trying to find the identity of these four kingdoms in Daniels prophecy. What is important is the history that Daniel and other Jewish writers thought was correct.
(cont...)
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City Fan
(final part!)
The last gentile power mentioned by name in Daniel is Greece (10:20) and not Rome. So we know the name of the last kingdom and it is now easy to name the second and third kingdoms. We then have this order:
The Babylonians - The Medes - The Persians - The Greeks
This list of kingdoms fits the descriptions in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 much better than Babylon - Medo Persia - Greece - Rome. For example, Daniel 2:39 says that the second kingdom of silver would be 'inferior' to Babylon. If the second kingdom included Persia then this would definitely be wrong as the Persian Empire under Darius Hystaspes and Xerxes I was far greater than the Babylonian Empire. It was the third kingdom which would rule over over all the earth and certainly Persia under Xerxes ruled over most of the biblical world.
The fourth kingdom would be Greece which became a divided kingdom which was partly strong (iron) under the reigns of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (Egypt 285-246BC) and Antiochus III The Great (Seleucid 223-187BC) and was otherwise weak (clay). The Seleucid and Egyptian powers also had marriage alliances between each other (see Daniel 2:43).
So how do we re-interpret the traditional view of the third beast of Daniel 7. The leopard with four wings and four heads in end-time prophecy is said to represent the Greek and Macedonian Empire which was divided between the four generals of Alexander the Great. But the real identity of this beast is given at Daniel 11:2 which says: "And now I will show you the truth. Behold, three more kings shall arise out of Persia; and a fourth shall be far richer than all of them; and when he has become strong through his riches, he shall stir up against the kingdom of Greece."
The four kings of Persia after Darius the Mede were Cyrus, Cambyses II, Darius I Hystaspes, and Xerxes I. Xerxes attacked Greece and was finally defeated at Platea in 479BC. So the third beast with four heads represents the Persian Empire under its four great kings.
In fact every prophecy in Daniel is aimed specifically at one person, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid king who persecuted the Jews. He is the 'little horn' that appears out of the Greek Ram in Daniel chapter 8. He is the horn from the fourth beast in chapter 7 that makes war with the saints. He is the King of the North who 'takes away the continual burnt offering' in chapter 11. (see 1 Maccabees 1:57 which says "On the fifteenth day of the month of Casleu, in the hundred and forty-fifth year, king Antiochus set up the abominable idol of desolation upon the altar of God".)
The amount of detail about the Syrian wars given by Daniel in chapter 11 shows that the book itself was written sometime between the desecration of the temple by Antiochus Epiphanes in December 167BC and his death in 164BC. The book does not predict the Roman Empire and has nothing to do with our modern era. It is an apocalyptic book written during the Seleucid persecution and the Maccabean uprising. It is really a book of Greek history rather than a prophetic book of the future.
CF.
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Navigator
I agree with you City Fan. The history seems to get more accurate as you approach the time of the writer, namely167 BC. That Antiochus IV Epiphanes was a really bad dude. Unlike the Persians, who left the Jews alone, the Greek conquerors wanted everyone to eat greek, speak greek, worhsip greek, and think greek. By a strict interpretation of the rules for Canon, the book should not have been included in the Old Testament. It wasn't old enough.
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City Fan
Navigator, you're right about Antiochus IV Epiphanes. In his attack on Jerusalem he is reported to have killed 80,000 Jews and also deported another 40,000.
The first time I researched the Syrian Wars and the Maccabean revolt I was amazed at how precisely Daniel chapter 11 documents this period. How many hours have we all spent studying Watchtower material on this subject. The King of the North and how it has changed its identity over the years ending with Germany then the Soviet world power. What a waste of time. That prophecy ends with Antiochus IV and has no other meaning.
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peacefulpete
Well expressed City Fan. The book immediately struck a cord within the heart of the Jewish community that despised the foreign domination. Interestingly as long ago as the first decades BC ( only 100 years or so after writing) readers had shifted identity of the 4th kingdom to the Romans. It seems people have always sought to understand such literature as having special importance for themselves.
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peacefulpete
I'll add that when argued that the 4 heads represented the 4 generals that assumed the empire after Alexander it ignores the fact that this was not a simple as it is made to appear. As i remember the power struggles resulted in mass confusion ending not with 4 but 2. But because of Christian influence you will often see highlighted 4 that largely had control for a very short time.
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City Fan
Pete,
Alexander's generals and administrators were known as the Diadochi. They included Perdiccas, Antipater, Craterus, Eumenes, Antigonas, Ptolemy, Seleucus and Lysimachus. After many years of conflict including the battles of Ipsus 301BC and Corupedion 281BC, the empire was divided between the descendants of Ptolemy, Seleucus and Antigonus.
As you point out, it is wrong to say that the Macedonian Empire was split between Alexander's four generals.
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peacefulpete
Thanks for the details. So the Greek identification would likely still be made by Christians whether it said 8 or 7or 6,5,4,3.