The Dream of the Image in Daniel

by jula71 5 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  jula71

  
  Just had to suffer through a book study tonight and one idea jumped out at me. I think the whole interpretation is being over-thought or twisted to match history. I think the interpretation is much simpler.

  (Daniel 2:37-38) 37You, O king, the king of kings, you to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the might, and the strength and the dignity, 38 and into whose hand he has given, wherever the sons of mankind are dwelling, the beasts of the field and the winged creatures of the heavens, and whom he has made ruler over all of them, you yourself are the head of gold.

  Daniel states the the king himself is the head of gold, not the whole nation which is taught. What if the 5 sections of the image are simply Babylonian kings......not world empires?

  (Daniel 2:39-43) 39"And after you there will rise another kingdom inferior to you; and another kingdom, a third one, of copper, that will rule over the whole earth. 40 "And as for the fourth kingdom, it will prove to be strong like iron. Forasmuch as iron is crushing and grinding everything else, so, like iron that shatters, it will crush and shatter even all these. 41 "And whereas you beheld the feet and the toes to be partly of molded clay of a potter and partly of iron, the kingdom itself will prove to be divided, but somewhat of the hardness of iron will prove to be in it, forasmuch as you beheld the iron mixed with moist clay. 42 And as for the toes of the feet being partly of iron and partly of molded clay, the kingdom will partly prove to be strong and will partly prove to be fragile. 43 Whereas you beheld iron mixed with moist clay, they will come to be mixed with the offspring of mankind; but they will not prove to be sticking together, this one to that one, just as iron is not mixing with molded clay.

  Each section it states "another kingdom" will rise. well each king in succession sets up his own kingdom. If you read it, it just doesn't feel like world empires.....more so starting out saying that Nebuchadnezzar is the head of gold. There where 5 kings and 5 parts of the image.

  Head of gold - Nebuchadnezzar

  Breast and arms of Silver - Evil-Merodach

  Belly and Thighs of Copper - Neriglissar

  Legs of Iron - Labashi-Marduk

  Feet of clay mixed with iron - Nabonidus (who co-ruled with son Belshazzar)

  That feet I found interesting due to the fact history shows the 2 men actually co-ruled together till it came to an end by Persia, who came in like a giant rock and crushed them. What do you think? Or am I nuts?
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  PopeOfEruke

  Nuts.

  Pope!!!
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  Cygnus

  Sounds as good as anything else I've read........... I think.

  Just remember, "Daniel" didn't write Daniel. It was composed in the 2nd century BCE. All the events it describes in that context had already occurred. It was not prophecy, it was disguised as such,
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  FairMind

  Just remember, "Daniel" didn't write Daniel. It was composed in the 2nd century BCE. All the events it describes in that context had already occurred. It was not prophecy, it was disguised as such,

  How do you spell OPINION?
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  Leolaia

  jula71....Your suggestion was first made by H. von der Hardt in 1708 and has been followed by several other scholars (Eerdmans, Goldingay, etc.). Cyrus would here be the stone that crushes the feet of clay and iron. However this is hardly the sense of the text in its current form, which refers to kingdoms (Aramaic mlkw, which far more often refers to kingdoms than reigns), one of which "rules over the whole earth" (2:39), whereas Babylonian kings were not distinguished from each other in this way, and the shattering realm of iron is not at all an apt metaphor for the brief reign of Labashi-Marduk. Moreover, the kingdom was not in fact divided between Belshazzar and Nabonidus, with intermarriage between the two parties, so this description poorly fits the Babylonian scheme as well. Finally, Cyrus himself did not establish an "eternal kingdom" as expected by v. 44. A much better explanation may be that in a much earlier version of the story, the statue originally was applied to the Neo-Babylonian kings but that the author of Daniel has shaped the metaphor to refer explicitly to a succession of kingdoms, ending in the divided Hellenistic kingdom of the Seleucids and Ptolemies. In fact, John Collins notes that "attempts to uncover the prehistory of Nebuchadnezzar's dream are necessarily hypothetical and necessity of such hypotheses may be questioned" (pp. 169-170). Thus while it is much clearer that the dream metaphors applied to Babylon-Media-Persia-Greece-Syria/Egypt in succession, it may not be the case that an early prehistory of the story existed; it may have been composed from the beginning to refer to these kingdoms. The four kingdoms trope moreover is a frequent one of the Hellenistic era, occurring in a number of other sources.

  Here is my recent post on the kingdoms alluded to in ch. 2:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/96060/1639913/post.ashx#1639913
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  Leolaia

  How do you spell OPINION?

  Except that it is the best explanation of the facts. There is a difference between an uninformed opinion and one that is backed up by multiple lines of evidence. Similarly, the idea that 587/586 BC was the date of the destruction of Jerusalem is a mere OPINION. Or the idea that 1 Enoch is a "spurious" work dating from the second century BC and not really written by an actual antediluvian patriarch is also an OPINION, tho one also backed up by relevant facts. Dare I say also that it is just opinion that the Assumption of Moses was not really written by Moses, the Testament of Job was not really written by Job, or the book of 4 Ezra was really not written by Ezra? It is just the same kind of evidence that reveals these to be pseudepigraphal that reveals Daniel to have been written centuries after the sixth century BC.