Talk:Book of Daniel/Archive 1

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The {} sign/s

One or more of the sign/s: {{NPOV}}{{expansion}}{{Cleanup}} placed on this page without any discussion, explanation or reasoning have been removed pending further discussion. (The category Category:Bible stories is now up for a vote for deletion at Wikipedia:Categories for deletion#Category:Bible stories) Thank you. IZAK 10:58, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)

this article is poorly structured, its sections are ill-titled, and it is unaccessible to the average reader who might have desire of its contents. Is that enough of an explanation? it requires cleanup. create a more effective hierarchy of sections, properly title those sections, make the language a little less opaque to someone new to the topic, and sort out the discrepancies of opinion amongst yourselves without compromising the article. This article reads more like the first draft of an amateur academic paper than an encyclopaedia article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.146.182.55 (talk) 09:19, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

The Time of the End

I have seen this discussion about "where Daniel goes wrong", and it is common consensus that it goes wrong at 11:40, correct? Now when I read this verse, it starts out with "And in the time of [the] end the king of the south...". Shouldn't this "time of the end" be pointing towards a completely different era, with other kings of north and south? - TagDaze

Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say anything is "common consensus", especially on a subject as controversial as this. That ignores all the people who disagree, as if they didn't exist or didn't count. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:00, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

It's kind of redundant, but let me rephrase that, then. The issue here is that starting from verse 40, Daniel 11 does not seem to conform with history. My question still stands. Shouldn't this "time of the end" from that verse be pointing towards a completely different era, with other kings of north and south? - TagDaze 18:51, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Once again, there are all kinds of different views. The view that it does "conform to history" up til verse 40 is but one view that has received a lot of academic attention in modern times. There is also the view of the Gospel (Matt 24), that the entire thing is a future prophecy of the end times, and none of it corresponds with past history, at least from verse 6 on, where the phrase "at the end of years" first appears. There are lots of different ways of analyzing this chapter, almost as many as there are people who have analyzed it. In my own analysis, the clear dividing line or break comes between verses 16 and 17; that is, I read verses 1-16 and 17-45 to be two distinct prophecies of the end times, both referring to the same events, rather than a chronologically continuous narrative from beginning to end. Verse 16 ends with the evil ruler of the last days standing in the Holy Land, "and it shall be finished up by his hand". Verse 17 starts afresh with a new prophecy about the same events as in 6-16; by the time we get to verse 45, we again have the evil ruler standing in the Holy Land. Of course, as this is only my own interpretation, it would be considered Original Research and hence inadmissible for the article. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:50, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

It's been a bit since I read Daniel but I agree with TagDaze, it seems that there is a break between the parts of the history that are totally accurate and then the things that can't be attributed and this seems to be a future/past break as he says. This is affirmed by the fact that as well as clear past events in some cases Jesus quotes in Matthew the verse about the Abomination causing Desolation as a future event, 1) this isnt the destruction of Jerusalem because the content is far to clear but also 2) it isnt the desecration of the temple by Antiochus or Jesus couldnt quote it except in the past tense because that was around (memory fails me but i think) 140 BC - TC —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.142.233 (talk) 04:13, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

A "Darius" as a generic Median or Persian title?"

No ruler of this name is recorded outside of religious texts. Although, Darius was a common title not unlike Pharoah or Caesar. Some historians suggest Darius the Mede is Cyaxares II referred to by the historian Xenophon. Cyaxares II being weak and sensual, was eclipsed by his energetic nephew, Cyrus. Darius as a kingly title? An example would be good from a royal inscription. Or does the "weak and sensual" remark give a better approximate date for this assertion? --Wetman 22:00, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

i genuinely apologize if you disapprove of the words "weak and sensual"...forgive me. i was only using xenophon's words.(see Cyropædia, i. 5; viii. 7) Georg Friedrich Grotefend has read it in the cuneiform inscriptions at Persepolis, as Darheush, i.e., Lord-king a name applied to many of the Medo Persian kings in common. Three by this name occur; Darius Hystaspis, B.C. 521, Darius Codomanus, B.C. 336 called "the Persian" and Darius Cyaxares II, between Astyages and Cyrus(from Eschylus, Persia762, 763). Cyrus, as the subordinate prince, took Babylon, B.C. 538. if this information will suffice, please re-include Darius as generic title. thanks, -john johnson

My error. Xenophon and Late Victorians: guess I can't tell them apart! If "Darius" is more than Bourbon "Louis", can you work your supportive material into the article? --Wetman 00:03, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

probably could....though it seems kind of unimportant. Darius Cyaxares II is just a theory about Darius the Mede. however, he seems like he should be included because he fits the time period exactly. Darius as generic title isn't such a big deal. Most of my info was retrieved from (Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown's A Commentary; Critical, Experimental, and Practical as well as a (yes) late victorian translation of Xenophon. i don't really care if it's included or not--Darius' identity seems like a rather long sidenote to make anyway. thanks, --john johnson

NPOV: a neutral point-of-view

Recently User:Matt Crypto removed the structural and literary text concerning the Book of Daniel: "which would be parables save for their miraculous content" as offending his "NPOV," saying ""parable" strongly suggests fiction." It cannot be strongly enough stressed, especially since "NPOV" is being invoked, that Wikipedia does not testify to the truth of any religion's books of scripture. Wikipedia treats all texts as documents. Wikipedia reports on the history and language and content and social/intellectual background of texts and documents, and attempts to describe the intentions and points-of-view expressed in them. Wikipedia also reports the range of mainstream interpretations of texts. But Wikipedia does not stand witness for miracles, nor, indeed, does it even decry superstitions. --Wetman 14:06, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Symphona and source for disunity

I removed the remark about "Symphona" because the Greek word "Symphona" references a group of musicians playing together [from which we get the obvious cognate "Symphony."] The word in Daniel which is being suggested as the "earliest example of symphona" refers to a specific instrument which was a type of dulcimer. It is therefor not an early example of the later Greek form (as stated by the article). The remark was reinserted by a later editor.

Since the sources I have indicate that the vast majority of commentators consider Daniel written by a single author, could someone furnish a source for that being a significant view, else it appears more appropriate to use language that makes clear that such is a viewpoint held by only a few scholars.

I disagreed with language "already drawn by Porphyry" in discussing the late dating because it suggests that there was a bevy of commentators chomping at the bit to decry its putative age from early times. The reality is that other than Porphyry, there is no significant historical attack on the earlier dating of Daniel until the 17th Century! Given that only one commentator introduced significant criticism on this point for nearly 2000 years [at least 200 BC to 1600 AD], I think "already drawn by Porphyry" is misleading. The alternative is simply to make a big to-do about how no other commentator suggested an earlier dating until the 17th century, but I thought that did not flow well with the paragraph [which is designed to highlight the later dating point of view]

Can we come to a consensus about these wording issues?

Thanks

Phantym 02:50, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for fixing more of my spacing issues! I won't use that editor again for this :)

What is up with removing sensible text, such as the following:

Textual analysis has established to the satisfaction of secular historians that the book grew in stages, beginning as separate Aramaic stories of the Persian and Hellenistic period, which were collected and then had a vision added possibly in the 3rd century B.C.E., forming the Aramaic chapters 2-7, to which were added the three 2nd century B.C.E. (see "Date" below) visions of chapters 8-12, and the introduction to the book, chapter 1.

This was not to the taste of Phantym. Or am I missing it in the shuffle? This is very poor behavior. When this person has quite finished with this article, someone will have to go through the edits and note what has been trashed in the interests of "sacred historians" and do some re-editing. --Wetman 04:14, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

My edit to this page was based upon Wetman's revision of 14 May, while trying to integrate the views of Phantym. I tried to tone down the rhetoric to a level I felt appropriate; it could (and should) go further. I also feel that the paragraph(s) regarding the detailed chronology of the book's creation do not belong at the head of the article, which should serve as an introduction.

Note also Phantym's other contribution: Prophecy of Seventy Weeks. It appears to reference a book by a John F Walvoord, which (as noted at the bottom of this article) is "A detailed, systematic analysis of the Book of Daniel with emphasis on studying and refuting nonbiblical views." This, then, is a POV source, and all information derived from it should be labeled as such. It is an eschatological investigation as well; the Book of Daniel has attracted the attention of plenty of like-minded scholars and dreamers, not the least of whom was Sir Issac Newton.

Here's a balanced commentary, which touches on the authorship issue: http://www.religioustolerance.org/daniel.htm - mako 08:17, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Four answers

In response to "Textual analysis has established to the satisfaction of secular historians that the book grew in stages, beginning as separate Aramaic stories of the Persian and Hellenistic period, which were collected and then had a vision added possibly in the 3rd century B.C.E., forming the Aramaic chapters 2-7, to which were added the three 2nd century B.C.E. (see "Date" below) visions of chapters 8-12, and the introduction to the book, chapter 1."

Well, for one thing, that is not the text I removed. I removed a paragraph at the beginning which simply stated without any separate view that the book grew in stages. Secondly, no source was given for the remark, and my source postdated the only source I saw when I edited it.

Thirdly, I gave a thorough discussion as to why one of the specific facts [regarding the mention of symphonia] was removed. I do not understand why your post made no reference at all to my talk post discussing these matters.

Lastly, it was not "surreptitious." I stated flat out that I changed the first paragraph and gave the reason why.

The current version of this page is intolerably inaccurate.

First you cannot say "Most interpreters find that references in the Book of Daniel reflect the persecutions of Israel by the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BC), and consequently date its composition to that period."

The statement as written is simply not true. Secondly, even if it were true it would be a poor conflation of two completely different camps. As should be clear to anyone is that there are separate camps with different agenda, to the point that it makes little sense to discuss them in the aggregate. Thirdly, two of the most acclaimed texts on the matter indicate that a large part of those who subscribe to a later dating still affirm its unity.

Similarly, "Defenders of prophetic inerrancy..." does not portray correctly the situation, as there are scholars running a long spectrum, many who would certainly not consider themselves Biblical inerrantists, that maintain the question of dating and unity as open. The verbiage as written makes the group in the second camp (which, historically, is the majority!) sound like some framentary rebel band.

Another problem is that article incorrectly combines the unity and dating issues. The two are separate and have separate standing in the academic community. Any edition that does not clearly state this, as well as clearly state the documented existence of secular historians who hold that the book is a single unit [thought with a later date than their sacred colleagues] is not an accurate depiction of reality. Phantym 03:34, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

First, if you go to the history page and do a compare between yours and Wetman's revisions of May 14th, you'll see that you did remove that text. Second, the sources you have are not the only sources, especially if (I am guessing) they are mainly "sacred" sources. Third, you should make a note on the talk page at the same time you substantially edit the article, not days later.

I am not qualified to comment on the associativity of the unity and dating issues at the moment, but I may be compelled to do some research of my own. The important thing, in any case, is to make sure that all, meaning all, points of view are fairly represented. - mako 08:32, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

No I did not,please read carefully.

I was quite clear in saying "Well, for one thing, that is not the text I removed. I removed a paragraph at the beginning which simply stated without any separate view that the book grew in stages."

If you go to the revision page you will see that the passage I removed was:

The book grew in stages, beginning as separate Aramaic stories of the Persian and Hellenistic period, which were collected and then had a vision added possibly in the 3rd century B.C.E., forming the Aramaic chapters 2-7, to which were added the three 2nd century B.C.E. (see "Date" below) visions of chapters 8-12, and the introduction to the book, chapter 1. The book now has two distinct parts, a series of narratives and four apocalyptic visions.

This text (with no suggestion of separate view or that the view above is even up to debate) is the text I removed. My point is that things that are still very much debated should not be placed in the intro as though they were true. Rather, both views should be represented in the appropriate section. I think that is a very reasonable point that any person looking for a neutral point of view should hold. What is not reasonable is for a referenced statement verifying the existence of secular scolars who themselves support a unit view to be completely removed only to have its antithesis instantiated.

I apologize for not putting a post in the discussion page, I misunderstood the purpose of this page. I did, however, ask for discussion about important wording issues so as to reach a concensus, but Wetman did not respond in any way request.

Phantym 20:21, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Revamp

I have revamped the history and dating sections and included a unity section so that discussions of various theories go in their proper places. To remove some of the weasel words, I have listed significant scholars as specific supports of various theories.

A general list of changes:

added an allusion to the possible movement of the book into the introduction. Removed all specific discussion of Date and Unity from the introduction to be dealt with in their respective sections. Removed the reference to "parables" as, regardless of their accuracy, the stories do not fit that narrative genre. The historicity of the three youthes thrown into the fiery furnace has been varied by archaelogical digs (in the sense of their existence, not in terms of the their actually surviving a journey through the fiery furnace) Changed "Persian King Darius" to "a King Darius of unclear identity," since the text certainly does not refer to "Darius" as a Persian and interpreters are all over the board with regard to whom the author means to specify. Expanded discussion of historical accuracy and moved some content from there to other sections to make a clean break between questions dealing with historical conflicts and questions dealing with date or unity issues. Categorized the various dating and unity issues. Clarified the state of objection up until Higher Criticism Gave an extensive list of scholars (both secular and sacred) that supported and those that refuted the unity of Daniel Fleshed out the issues surrounding Symphonia, which has now been found in much earlier sources than previously known. Expanded both the discussions on historical accuracy and dating by ensuring both viewpoints on each issues [so far as I could determine them] were expressed. Added links to two critical articles, one of which is part of a large set of secular historians attacks on Daniel. Added links to an article summarizing conservative responses. Added an objection to Daniel based on the term "Chaldean" Added an objection to Daniel based on Belshazzar's relation to Nebuchadnezzar Added support to conservative viewpoint based on details of early Babylon Added a discussion concerning the madness of Nebuchadnezzar as a plausible historical error. Phantym 17:59, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Great addition to the article. Very balanced overall. - mako 20:40, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Thanks so much! Perhaps the long list of scholars could be replaced with something like "Harrison and Barton, the former a conservative the latter a liberal scholar, are cited by Conklin to catalog over two dozen other scholars, both secular and sacred, that support the unity of Daniel."

I did not want the article to become a name-dropping contest, but it beats weasel words.

Phantym 22:08, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

This article is a POV disaster.

Okay- referring to "sacred historians" as trustworthy sources of information is inappropriate for an encyclopedia. The point of Wikipedia's NPOV policy is to allow the evidence for opposing mainstream viewpoints about a certain topic to be discussed in an article, yet this policy is routinely abused to put up unsubstantiated viewpoints alongside mainstream scholarly viewpoints as if they both have equal validity. The fact of the matter is that every mainstream scholarly work I have read about biblical history comes to the conclusion that Daniel in its final form dates to the period of the Maccabean revolt. Read William G. Dever, Rainer Albertz, what have you. Heck, even Encarta, a general encyclopedia which is fairly conservative, states that Daniel was probably written in the 2nd century BC.

The question of the unity of the book is an entirely different question that does merit equal treatment of both sides of the issue. The question of date is not- I know of no competent biblical critic who would date any part of Daniel to the 6th century BC.

Once again, you don't see this controversy in the articles about citrus fruit. --Rob117 20:30, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

"The fact of the matter is that every mainstream scholarly work I have read about biblical history comes to the conclusion that Daniel in its final form dates to the period of the Maccabean revolt." They may say it, but they can't prove it. The data from within the book in the language it was written indicates that it was written LONG before 164 B.C..

"I know of no competent biblical critic who would date any part of Daniel to the 6th century BC." Actually, some of the scholars who date it that early ARE competent scholars. One would never expect a critic to ever agree with virtually anything that the Bible says.

I've heard of controversy over the use of Alar on apples, does that count for "controversy" "about citrus fruit"? Otherwise, why would one expect one? --David J. Conklin 13:43, 27 May 2007

I'm no expert, but the article seems to present both sides of the issue. While it could probably be more upfront about the biases of "sacred historians" (and better terms for historians could be used), it reads to the uninitiated (me) okay. If you could mention specific books and/or articles, I'll take a look at them.

Feel free to correct the POV, but keep in mind that historians on both sides essentially cite evidence to advance their own POV. In an article like this -- covering a book of the Bible -- one side considers it a historical document and the other considers it the Word of God. It would be a major bias to leave out believers' views on their own religious text. - mako 22:49, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

For sources see under references look for "The Date of the Book of Daniel" and the bibliography will certainly get you started.--David J. Conklin 13:45, 27 May 2007

After having read the article in its present state, I was pleasantly surprised to see a fairly balanced approach. I expected a highly polemic frankenstein of an article as many such are... This discussion page, on the other hand, shows some mistaken notions about NPOV that I want to speak for. First, NPOV does NOT mean that only "mainstream" views should be represented. You will not find the word "mainstream" in the article on NPOV, nor will you find the same concept under a different name (at least at the point of my writing this). You will find rather the opposite: "All significant points of view are presented, not just the most popular one." Also germaine, from the NPOV article: "As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints. . . . Background is provided on who believes what and why, and which view is more popular." In other words, there should be no problem with a section detailing the position of those who hold the book of Daniel to be written at the time internally stated, but neither should there be any problem with providing the viewpoint of those who believe the book is an encoded document recording the visitation of aliens from the planet Nibiru (if such a view exists). It would be difficult to define NPOV as that which corresponds with "mainstream" scholarship. What was once considered progress by the mainstream is now considered oppressive by post-colonialist thinkers. Darwin's conclusions about evolution were considered poor biology by the mainstream of his day, but are now acknowledged as the foundation of modern biology by most biologists today. It is less fruitful for an encyclopedia (especially one as organic as wiki) to side with a position than to represent it carefully. --JECompton 23:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh really? Did you know that there is a modern neopagan movement that is resurrecting the gods of ancient Greece? I don't see any Wikipedia articles on Greek mythology giving arguments for and against the historicity of the Greek myths- they are, quite logically, simply assumed to be mythological. A large segment of the American population believes the government has a secret trade deal with extraterrestrials, yet I don't see the arguments of "both sides" being treated in those articles. Why should the biblical accounts of magic and prophecy be treated any differently? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and in this case, the extraordinary evidence does not exist. Some of the evidence cited to be used by "sacred" historians is downright untruthful. The article claims that John Collins supports an early date in a 1992 work, but a 1993 work by the same author charactarizes the Aramaic and Hebrew of the book as similar to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2nd century BC-1st century AD), according to this article. According to this article, Rainer Albertz has claimed to identify the historical period of each section of the book based on its themes. Furthermore, the article cites standard apologetic responses as if they were legitemate arguments. Claiming that "Darius the Mede" is just another name for Cyrus the Persian or his officer Gubaru is ridiculous- Cyrus's name was Cyrus, and Gubaru's name was Gubaru. There is no reason to believe either of them used the "Darius the Mede" as an alias. Using wordplay to justify the reference to Belshazzar as "king" when he was clearly not king and as the "son" of Nebuchadnezzar when he was his grandson at best, and quite possibly completely unrelated to him, is simply ludicrous. Furthermore, the article fails to mention that the book of Daniel claims that Jerusalem was besieged in the third year of King Jehoiakim of Judah (606 BC) by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. This is unhistorical. First of all, Nebuchadnezzar did not ascend the throne until the fourth year of Jehoiakim (September 7, 605 BC to be precise), and second of all, there was no siege of Jerusalem in 606 BC- there were two sieges of Jerusalem, one in 597 BC during the three-month reign of Jehoiakim's son Jehoiachin, the other in 587 BC during the eleventh year of King Zedekiah. Additionally, the article presents the issue between "sacred" and "secular" historians as if it were a legitemate, scholarly debate. It is not. The article implies that only secularists date Daniel to the second century BC, when there are plenty of nonfundamentalist religious believers who, looking at the evidence without any preconceptions, feel obliged to reach the conclusion that the book is of late date. This is even in the commentary of some mainstream Bibles. According to this article, "The New Oxford Annotated Bible notes that '(t)he author [of Daniel] was a pious Jew living under the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes, 167-164 B.C." Another excellent translation, The New Jerusalem Bible, says the same thing: "The book was written during the persecution of the Jews by the Syrian king Antiochus Epiphanes (167-164 BC); his attempts to seduce the Jews from the observance of the Law... form the background of its message.'"

Lastly, it makes a reference to people who date Daniel to the 2nd century BC as "liberal" historians. The phrase "mainstream historians" would be more appropriate thank you very much.

Wikipedia does not engage in apologetics. I'm changing the article. --Rob117 20:30, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

As I said, this is not my area of expertise. It's tough trying to police a page when you know very little about the subject. I just think it prudent to include the "sacred" claims (however rooted in fundamentalism they may be) if only to refute them soundly.

Anyway, clean it up as you see fit, thanks. Wikipedia needs more people who know what they're talking about. - mako 00:42, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

I would have no problem with neopagans arguing for the historicity of what we consider Greek mythology. Nor do I have a problem with treating biblical passages as mythology--the important thing is accurate citation and representation.--JECompton 23:55, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Cleaned it up. Acknowledged that some conservatives still follw the early date, but otherwise went with the mainstream late date(s). Removed all apologetics. --Rob117 03:05, 7 August 2005 (UTC)

This article is rubbish, absolute rubbish. Wiki had better get a hold on these Evangelical fablers who are spoiling their site or else it'll be superseded by another, more scholarly website. - JCuesicus (talk) 07:38, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. john k (talk) 07:57, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

What nonsense. How about getting a hold on the materialistic atheist lot who take over articles like this? GTFO you POV SOBs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.42 (talk) 21:16, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

INTERNAL CONSISTENCY OF POV

I'd like to squeeze in an elucidation except it wouldn't fit in the conversation about POV DISASTER so I'll start this new sub-segment on internal consistency of POV, to get the squabbling contributers to make sure and consider the scriptures's own, highest, and best scholarship about itself.

I will posit strongly that opinions on the level of scriptural quality **should** be objectified. That is because there is 'an internal quality rating' that should be allowed, especially in neutral toned scholarship, of all scriptural text: to wit, SOME of the text would qualify as "the Word of God" (using the term only slightly more flexibly than it perhaps should be), and some as less.

Much of the JC Bible, by bulk, is not PROPHECY -- and (abundant references omitted) ONLY prophecy may be considered as actually (and literally) the "Word of God." Again using the internal scale, this defines prophecy and the difference between "a prophet of God" and "a false prophet." Prophecy in this objectified mind is unique and the most important text in existence.

But regardless of the author, the rest may only be qualified as testimony, teaching (including myth), or 'exhortation'; more or less linearly declining in accuracy, and frankly truth, if not importance.

The reason this internal scale should be followed with care in these discussions is precisely because of the neutral tone and objectivity. As a canon body, if such text is included for their several purposes, but later found compressed into something inseparable by careless teaching or scholarship; then perhaps a major benefit of evolution has not been accomplished.

In media discussions near and far we are left to debate only a single qualification for the totality of "the Bible," and the mental projections of orthodoxy -- a perceptive quality on the level of squabbling crows -- is elevated to destroy scholarship's value by sheer carelessness.

In the end I represent to you that there is nothing comparable in overall value than to have an accurate accounting of these specific texts. Because of what they are, that which is indubitable, remember in your discussions to characterize them by their own internally consistent standards.

---

Xgenei (talk) 19:11, 25 June 2008 (UTC)(Now JC*AD, author of the coming Millennial Christian theory site, UUNIS.org)

70 weeks of years

Daniel 9: Discusses 70 weeks of years, the account states that this period would start with the "going forth " of the word to rebuild jerusalems walls! Nehemiah's arrivel during Artaxerxes Regin in 455 B.C begins this period! The period is split up into 3 parts

1) 7 weeks of years; rebuilding the walls! 49 years

2) 62 weeks; 434 years

3) 1 Week; 7 years

The 70 weeks are to predict "messiah the leader's" arrival and say he would be "cut off" half way through the final week, or 3.5 years from hes arrival! in order to "finish off sin" (or the sin offerings of the jews) as per the phrase "make attonement for error"! The first 2 parts bring you upto 29C.E (49years + 434 years) and half way through the final week upto 33C.E

The jews were in "expectation" of "the [promised] messiah" at this specific time period Luke 3: 1-5;15 because of Daniel chapter 9!

Most Historians Date daniel as being written 2nd century B.C; They would probably date it later, but for the dead sea scrolls!

fyi: weeks.... if you read Dan carefully there is a distinction between messiah and the leader, traditionally accepted as Christ and Anti-Christ, they are not the same - hence the leader sets up the abomination... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.153.142.233 (talk) 04:53, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

King of north & South Following on From 70 Weeks of Years

No they wouldn't. Daniel 11 shows a very detailed knowledge of Seleucid history up to about 165 BC, but is wrong in its discussion of how Antiochus will die. As such, that part of Daniel, at least, can be dated fairly securely to some time around 165 BC - before Antiochus IV's death. john k 22:30, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Daniel 11 doesnt mention Antiochs IV's demise. Dan 11:20 depicts Octavian-Augustus as someone who "must stand up in his position",the "exactor" was the census of 2 B.C "a few days" upto 14 A.D where he "Augustus" died due to illness at the age of 76! not dying in "warfare or anger" Daniel 11:21 refers to "Tiberius Caesar" "despised" by Augustus & not having the "Dignity" of the kingdom bestowed upon him, this reluctant ruler became Caeser because nobody else could be found! Also the "leader of the covenant", Jesus; was "broken" during tiberius's reign! The fact that the "King of the North" had changed to the roman "Caesar's" was further illustrated in Matt 24:15,16 where jesus refers to the "discusting thing (heathen romans) standing where it ought not("the holy place" or the jewish temple) as spoken through the prophet "Daniel"" Jesus is quoting Daniel 11:31. The Romans later attacked jerusalem, withdrew; (& the jews who listened got out) the Roman's came back in 70A.D!

I have no idea how Christian fundamentalists interpret Daniel 11. It's odd that you would take 11:20 to be referrnig to events after Antiochus IV, when most scholars (including St. Jerome!) interpret 11:20 to be about Seleucus IV, Antiochus IV's predecessor. But the basic scheme followed by secular scholars is as follows:

• 11:2 - the fourth king of Persia is Xerxes, who invaded Greece
• 11:3 - the mighty king is Alexander
• 11:4 - Alexander's kingdom is broken after his death, and is divided up by his generals.
• 11:5 - The King of the South is Ptolemy I, and one of his princes who shall be strong above him and have dominion is Ptolemy II
• 11:6 - The King's daughter of the south is the daughter of Ptolemy II, and the king of the north that she marries is Antiochus II. She does not retain the power of the arm and is given up to Antiochus II's first wife, who murders both her husband and his new wife.
• 11:7 - The branch of her roots is her brother Ptolemy III, who defeats Seleucus II, the new King of the North, in the Third Syrian War
• 11:8 - more on Ptolemy III's victories over Seleucus II. Ptolemy III does indeed reign longer than Seleucus II
• 11:9 - Ptolemy III returns hom at the end of the war.
• 11:10 - "his sons" are the sons of Seleucus II, king of the North - the one who certainly comes up, and overflows, and passes through, is Antiochus III, who invades Egyptian Syria in the Fourth Syrian War in 219 BC
• 11:11 - The King of the South who is moved with choler is Ptolemy IV, who defeats Antiochus III at Raphia in 217 BC
• 11:12 - Ptolemy IV wins the battle of Raphia, but is not strengthened by it
• 11:13 - Antiochus III comes up against the Egyptians again with a larger army in the Fifth Syrian War
• 11:14 - The Jews rebel against Ptolemy at this point, presumably in support of the Seleucids
• 11:15 - Antiochus III comes against Ptolemy V in the Fifth Syrian War and defeats him without much effort. The Jews don't resist either.
• 11:16 - Antiochus III is successful in his conquests.
• 11:17 - Antiochus III gives "the daughter of women", his daughter Cleopatra, in marriage to Ptolemy V.
• 11:18 - Antiochus III tries to make war in Greece, but is defeated by the Romans and driven back
• 11:19 - Antiochus III goes back to his own land, but dies in Elymais while looting a temple.
• 11:20 - Antiochus III is succeeded by his son Seleucus IV, who goes to a great deal of trouble to raise taxes to pay off the Roman indemnity incurred by his father. Seleucus IV is destroyed, neither in anger, nor in battle, but by being murdered by his own servant.
• 11:21 - Antiochus IV is the vile person, to whom they shall not give the honor of the kingdom, who succeeds Seleucus IV. He comes in peacefully, in spite of the superior claims of Seleucus IV's son Demetrius.
• 11:22-24 Not sure exactly what is going on here
• 11:25 - Antiochus IV goes to war with the new king of the south, Ptolemy VI, who is defeated
• 11:26 - More on this point
• 11:27 - Not sure exactly, but Antiochus IV and Ptolemy VI make peace
• 11:28 - Antiochus IV returns from his successful campaign against Egypt, but is against the Jews
• 11:29 - Antiochus IV goes off to make war on Ptolemy VI again
• 11:30 - The Romans are the ships of Chittim who come against Antiochus IV and force him to return without victory. In revenge, he does bad things to the Jews
• 11:31 - Antiochus IV pollutes the temple with idolatry
• 11:32 - Some will be corrupted by Antiochus, but others will revolt against him
• 11:33-35 - More in the same vein
• 11:36 - Antiochus will make himself as a god (note that "Epiphanes" means "the god made manifest")
• 11:37-39 More in the same vein

All of this is, to secular scholars, a description of the history of the Ptolemies and Seleucids from the time of Alexander down to around 165 BC. After this we get to an inaccurate prophecy of Antiochus IV's death:

• 11:40 - The King of the South (Ptolemy VI?) now makes war on Antiochus, but Antiochus is victorious
• 11:41 - Antiochus conquers many countries
• 11:42 - Antiochus conquers Egypt
• 11:43 - Antiochus conquers Libya and Ethiopia
• 11:44 - Antiochus is troubled by tidings from the east and north and leaves Egypt in order to destroy things
• 11:45 - Antiochus makes his camp near Jerusalem, but dies suddenly, and none shall help him.

All of this is, to secular scholars, an inaccurate prediction of the ultimate fate of Antiochus IV, who did not, in fact, invade Egypt again, certainly did not conquer it, and died, in fact, fighting the Parthians in the east, not encamped somewhere near Jerusalem. Thus, secular scholars date the work to around 165 BC. This has nothing to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls, because it is the inaccuracy of what are thought to be predictions of the death of Antiochus IV that date the prophecy so clearly - it is written after all the events "forecast" in 11:2-39 have happened, but before Antiochus's actual death, which would otherwise be accurately described.

Now, I am aware that this is not the view that fundamentalists have of Daniel. But this is the view of secular scholars, and it doesn't make sense to say that they would date it later if not for the Dead Sea Scrolls - the conventional date for Daniel is because of internal textual evidence that puts it after 167 BC and before 164 BC. john k 20:20, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

20th Century secular scholars may interprit the verses this way!

But 1st century scholars thought otherwise. Matt 24:15;16 show, the "discusting thing" was not "Antioch IV" as moders scholars have theorised, But was the Roman incursion "removing" the "constant feature" (animal sacrifices)! Note that Matt 26:28 shows who the "leader of the covenant" is described in Daniel 11:22 to be "broken" during the king of Daniel 11:22 or "tiberius"!

I don't care what Matthew thought. Jerome, I will note, basically agreed with present day secular scholars, although he thought 11:21-39 referred only partially to Antiochus, and mostly to the antichrist, and thought 40-45 referred wholly to the Antichrist. But this is irrelevant, because my point was not what these verses refer to. My point was that you said that secular scholars would date the book later than the second century BC if not for the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is not true, because the way secular scholars interpret the book means that it was written before the death of Antiochus IV. This would be true even without the Dead Sea Scrolls. john k 21:51, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Matthew didnt think anything, it was Jesus quoting Daniel 11:31. have you even read these verses, their very specific! My point was that, scholars date Daniel at 160's B.C because of the accuracy of the prophecies. They would date it later, because the prophecies continue, rationalising that they must refer to Antiochus, but they dont. the 70 weeks of years, the messiah, gift offering ceasing, the leader of the covenant, & him being broken, all pinpoint 33C.E. onwards. The later "desolation", the "discusting thing", but the dead sea scrolls date it at 2nd Century B.C minimum.

The fact that the jews were warned to "flee" when they saw "encamped armies" shows the romans would make an "unexpected retreat" & there would be a way out! Matt 24:15;16 as per the stake-out of 66A.D and later "desolation 70A.D"

This is all original research. Scholars do not interpret anything in Daniel as referring to Jesus or the destruction of the second temple. The description in Daniel 11 is accurate up to a point shortly before Antiochus IV's death. After that, it is not accurate (or has not yet taken place). As such, it is dated by historians to the latter part of the reign of Antiochus IV. This has nothing to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls. john k 23:50, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

How could you interprit this quote from 33A.D as anything but the roman incursion.?

Matt 2415,16"when you catch sight of the discusting that causes desolation standing in a holy palce, as spoke of by the prophet daniel. Then let those in judea begin fleeing to the mountains"! Quoting Daniel 11:31 &Daniel 9:

For secular historians, the fact that Matthew thought that Daniel was discussing the Roman period is irrelevant to an understanding of what Daniel is talking about. john k 19:55, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Your own argument invalidates itself! You say that Daniel tried to "predict" Antiochus IV "future" demise. Yet historians are themselves assigning events they believe Daniel must have alluded to!

Surely there would be no point ascribing "any" events to verse 40 onwards. If 40 onwards is made up, why assign events to it!

Also about the writing style of daniel, why would he write 20 verses describing 10+ Kings & 25 verses only describing 1 King? About secular historians ignoring Matthew's account! Just proves their ignorance. If you had read the comment correctly, you would know it wasnt Matthew who reffered to the Romans! & it isnt only mentioned in Matthew!

Who do secular historians say the "leader of the covenant" was, that was "broken" in Daniel 11:22,? Because;

First you have to know what the "covenent" was! It certainly wasnt a covenant with any foreign nations! It was a covenant that replaced the "Abrahamic" covenant. And the leader was the "Annointed" one of Daniel 9:25 called "Messiah the leader" Luke 1:55; Acts 3:25; Matt26:28; Mark 14:24

Daniel 9:26 says "Messiah wil be cut off"! And 70weeks of years pinpoint this to 33A.D

Daniel 11:22 says "The leader of the covenant will be Broken", these reffer to the same person! ^33A.D^

Daniel 11:22 in No-Way at all refers to Antiochus IV or his time period!

First point - I am not arguing the merits of the case of secular historians. I am merely stating what the basic argument is. The reason that 25 verses describe Antiochus is because the book was written in the midst of Antiochus's persecutions. In terms of ascribing events, historians are trying to figure out what exactly Daniel was saying in that part - he seems to be trying to predict the downfall and death of Antiochus IV, but what he says didn't come to pass. This is why historians think it was written before Antiochus's death - if it had been written afterwards, it would have described his actual death. As to Daniel 11:22, I'm not sure what is specifically being referred to, but I do know that historians have taken it to be from the period of Antiochus IV. Again, you can disagree with this, but I'm just saying that this is what secular historians believe, in order to correct your notion that secular historians would love to date Daniel after 165 BC. The fact is that they wouldn't - the date of 165 BC is based quite explicitly on the reigning theory of Daniel's composition. john k 23:08, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Its been a nice discussion, and well have to agree to differ, dating Daniel to 165B.B.C doesnt explain the 70 weeks of year prophecy or the refference to the "messiah - Leader of the covenant", and him "being broken-cut off" in a 3.5 year period. And lots more not mentioned in this short discussion. The Census of 2B.C & the "Braking of the leader" fit "Octavius & Tiberius" Far more accurately, than AntiochusIV.

Just to let you know, there are at least three obscure interpretations of Daniel 11 that deny reference to Antiochus IV. Rashi (a very well known Jewish commentator) interprets: v. 17 Now the daughter of women he will give him to destroy her: this is the nation of Israel [referred to in Song of Songs 1:8 as] "the fairest of women." the king of the north will command the general of his army to destroy her. I say that he is Antiochus, the king of Greece who issued decrees against Israel, and he commanded his general, Phillip, to kill whoever identified himself as a Jew, as is written in the book of Josiphon. v. 20 And a contemptible person will stand on his base: then the kingdom of Rome will strengthen itself on its stand, as it says "you are very despised" (Obad. 1:2) and the Romans will rise and take the kingdom from the Greeks. Notice that Rashi interprets verse seventeen of Antiochus IV Epiphanes instead of his father, a proceeds to identify the "vile person" as the kingdom of Rome. Yefet ben Ali Ha-Levi, a Karaite commentator, denies any reference in chapter 11 relates to Antiochus. He identified the king of the north as the "king established at Baghdad" i.e. the Parthians and Sassanids (though their capital was really Ctesiphon), and the king of the south as the Romans and Byzantines. Thus he interprets verse 16-19 of Khusrav's attempt at besieging Constantinople ("a well fenced city") and makes the "vile person" Omar ibn El-Khattab, the Caliph who took Persia from the Sassanids.

A note about apologetics.

Wikipedia is not the place to preach. It is an encyclopedia project with the goal of allowing users to contribute their own material, provided that the material being contributed is both neutral and in line with mainstream scholarship. Apologetics are not appropriate. If you are not sure if something constitutes apologetics, ask on the talk page. But do not put apologetics in the article. Please post accurate information with references to mainstream or scholarly sources only. Additionally, please do not post apologetics on the talk pages, as it fills the pages with unnecessary and distracting talk that has nothing to do with the article. Thank you.--Rob117 22:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)

Rob: 1 Be quiet! 2 Do your homework! Not your scifi fantasy! Mythology! Alien search rubbish! that your into. Proper research!

There's also a rule about personal attacks...--Rob117 02:30, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

Rob: Nothing to do with the article? Are you forgetting what Book we're talking about? If there's anyone that's preaching it's you buddy. I've read all your discussion commments and I haven't seen anyone more biased in their approach than you. It's as if any suggestion that the date is 6th cent. vs 2nd cent. BC is 'unrealistic' w/o giving reasons why... and i love your comment to change the word modern historians to mainstream... as if that has anywhere near the same meaning. Modern means contemporary... mainstream historians implies that any other historians are backwoods historians. Get your liberal agenda off of this page... recuse yourself from editing this page as you cannot seem to keep a NPOV.(anonymous)

I cited my sources. I read books by professional archaeologists and textual scholars on the subject. Apologetics do not belong in an encyclopedia. There's no "liberal agenda" here.--Rob117 20:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Magician

Technically, Daniel was the chief magician (just to show I didn't dream it up).

"I said to him, `O Belteshazzar, master magician, I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is too great for you to solve." Daniel 4:9

"And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father (C)the king, appointed him chief of the magicians, conjurers, Chaldeans and diviners." 5:11

That said, I agree the word "advisor" probably captures the Daniel's role better than "magician" does, with its modern connotations of pulling rabbits out of hats. I tried to think of a better synonymn-- diviner, fortuneteller, magi, consiglieri.. none of them seem to capture it. :) --Alecmconroy 18:15, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Darius confused with Cyrus in LXX

Rob, the paragraph about the LXX is not "the usual apologetics seeking to equate Darius with Cyrus"... You seem to be missing what it is actually saying... Nobody is equating Darius with Cyrus, and at any rate, it is not "apologetics". The LXX is far, far older variant of the text than the Masoretic Hebrew version. This is proven because it usually tends to agree with the Dead Sea Scrolls canon, and seems to have been the only one known to the earliest Christians who quoted it in the New Testament. What this suggests is not that Darius is or ever was "equated" with Cyrus, only that he was confused with Cyrus, by the various scribes who copied and/or translated the text over the centuries, long after both kings lived. This is not the only verse we have where the Greek reads one king's name, and the Hebrew reads the other. I'm not sure what kind of cite would suffice, did you need a footnote citing the Septuagint itself as a primary source? Or would you prefer a secondary source where these variants have been noted? As for MADAI being used generically for both Medes and Persians, this is well known; coincidentally, I see some anonymous user just added the exact same info to the article Medes only yesterday... It shouldn't be too hard to source this either, if you really need one. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:15, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

All right. Although I'm sure "Madai" was also used for just the Medes, even if it was sometimes used to include the Persians... for example, at the end of Daniel 6, when Daniel says that the Chaldean Empire would be divided between the Medes (Madai) and the Persians, so there is definitely a distinction there.--Rob117 04:25, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, sorry for the somewhat... belligerent tone; it's just that some months ago I completely revamped this article in order to remove apologetics as well as quite a lot of info that was just false. I'm fresh out of a dispute with some nationalists in the Bulgars article so I'm a bit suspicious of everything now.--Rob117 04:40, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Influence of Daniel

This material is poorly presented. The third paragraph comes out of left field. Can someone please clean it up. 24.7.87.135 04:37, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Editing "Darius the Mede"

I wanted to re-create the section to make it more accessible and balanced in terms of presenting different viewpoints and objections by both Christians and secular scholars. This "renovation" included the comparison (without conclusions) of the main views striving to claim of "Darius the Mede"

There are still some gaps in terms of references that could be plugged, but the main information is down. If there are objections, let me know what you think, thanks!

Doc Lucio

Discussion of source texts

My understanding (from other Wikipedia articles) is that there are a couple of different Greek texts in addition to the Masoretic Hebrew text, and that the Septuagint text of Daniel is not usually used as a source for the non-Hebrew portions, but rather something called the version of Theodotion. I eventually found my way back to this information, but I was very surprised to see no mention of the source texts in this article (especially given how much other blather the article contains instead). I will try to fix this up, but this field is not my strongest point: I would essentially be trying to bring in relevant material from the other articles that discuss this point, and I'd hope a real scholar could do better. --arkuat (talk) 23:24, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

I know about this. The Theodotion version is the one that is normally passed off as the Septuagint. However, it is not the original Greek, which is much more obscure. Although Theodotion was Jewish, the early Christians at some point decided they liked his translation of Daniel better; the earlier Greek version was ripped out of nearly every copy of the LXX and replaced with the Theod. But interestingly, where Theod.'s Greek agrees in several places with what is now known as the MT (Masoretic Text), the OLDER Greek version tends to back up the Hebrew / Aramaic fragments of Daniel known from the Dead Sea Scrolls. This shows that the older Greek text and Dead Sea Scrolls represent an older recension of Daniel, while the Theod. Greek and the MT probably represent a newer recension of the text. As crucial as these prophecies are, you'd think more people would have studied the original (pre-Theodotion) Greek text, as I have. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Apologistic crap

Why does this article have to have a lengthy discussion of the silly theories that apologists have presented to explain the "Darius the Mede" nonsense? At the very least, our first sentence should not that most modern scholars except the presence of the otherwise unknown "Darius the Mede" as evidence of the late date of composition of Daniel (Darius the Mede not being mentioned in, for instance, Second Isaiah, or Ezra or Nehemiah, or the later minor prophets, who are considered roughly contemporary), and that it is generally assumed to be a mistake. We can have a brief discussion of the various theories outlined by traditionalist Christians, but it should be just that - a brief discussion. We should not refer to such people as "Christian historians," as though they are comparable to normal scholars, and as though such people have a monopoly on the use of "Christian" - as I understand it, Catholics and main-line protestants are perfectly willing to accept a late date for Daniel. Perhaps we could use something like "Evangelical writers" or "traditionalist writers", if Codex hates "apologists" so much. But the whole section as it is now is awful. It is arguing against a position which hasn't actually been set forth, except implicitly - the section is entirely about explaining who Darius the Mede was, with no sense whatever that most historians don't care, because they assume he's just a mistake. john k 12:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

POV in "Dating" section

"This division is one mainly due to theology: conservative Bible scholars accept the Bible's claim that prophets can see into the future and then describe what they saw in spoken or written language. Modern Bible scholars, who descend from the school of German Higher Criticism, reject the Bible's notion that prophets can see visions of the future, that in fact Daniel had no such vision. This raises more issues than it solves. Many of the metaphors used in Daniel's visions are quite vivid, pointing to specific individuals and kingdoms. The specificity of these visions is the dividing line between the two camps. Liberal scholars must then, to get around the issue of Daniel's specificity, date the writing of the book of Daniel much later (see below) and attribute it to an unknown author who posed Daniel as the author of the book bearing his name."

Several problems with this: "This raises more issues than it solves" is a POV, and the whole paragraph implies that skeptics give a late date to Daniel solely because of a "liberal" ideological POV which rejects miraculous prophecy (ignoring all the problems with Daniel that are described elsewhere in the article). I see that an attempt has already been made to change this, but it was reverted for being too POV in the other direction: but this paragraph still needs attention.--Robert Stevens 10:18, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The same reversion made me think the same thing! Like Goldilocks and the three bears. The recent edit that got reverted was definitely "too anti-conservative". The current section is "too anti-liberal". We need to find one that's JUST RIGHT. :) I'm made some edits in this vein, but there's still more to do. --Alecmconroy 12:28, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

An "anti-conservative" "POV" is perfectly appropriate, because it represents the views of the vast majority of mainstream scholarship, accepted by pretty much anyone who's not a fundamentalist, including Catholics and most mainstream Protestant and Jewish groups. But this article is never ever going to get any better, because there'll always be more fundamentalists who wish to push their POV... john k 13:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Just to note, I'm basing this on the "due weight" principle. We have to give due weight to different POVs. The traditional Christian POV is just that - a traditional Christian POV. The POV of scholars is the POV of scholars, and it should be presented as it is, without lots of nonsense about how scholars are in a quandary because of the specific "predictions" of Daniel. john k 13:18, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Um, Undue weight is not an excuse to have an article be POV, it's supposed to just say how much space an article gives to various ideas or whatever. Homestarmy 13:23, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

My point is that "anti-conservative POV" actually means "giving due weight to the two perspectives." john k 13:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

So wait, is it advocating a POV or not? :/ Homestarmy 14:03, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

I think the passage that was removed, and which Alec described as "too anti-conservative" was mostly appropriate, and not terribly POV, although I maybe looking at the wrong edit. I think that the view of early authorship of the prophecy parts of the book should not be presented as anything but a view of fundamentalists, and we should clearly note that pretty much all generally respected scholars, religious or not, have accepted a late date for these portions for the last century and more. john k 16:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Last sentence of 1st para. of "Dating" section (on Jesus's attributed use of Dan.'s prophecies) moved to "Christian uses": Under the "Dating" section, that sentence:

According to the Gospels, Jesus indicates that some of the prophecies of Daniel will be fulfilled in the Last days right before the Resurrection of the dead and Judgement day, as the text of Daniel itself indicates.

is not the subject of that section: dating. As that section was written that sentence was discontinuous with what preceded and followed it. On the other hand it is consistent with the title of the section to which it was moved: "Christian uses." Thomasmeeks 16:46, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

The recently introduced third paragraph of this section begins with a factual assertion:

Christians who believe in the accuracy of the Gospels do not accept this interpretation, ...

Its source is not cited. The reverted use of "accuracy" rather the more contextually precise and well-established 'innerrancy' blurs rather than clarifies.

The whole sentence includes the following clause:

because Jesus is said in Matthew 24 to have quoted Daniel as a prophet who foretold events of the "end times" to immediately precede Judgement Day, and not in reference to Antiochus Epiphanes who had lived nearly 200 years before Jesus.

Neither the first part nor the whole sentence has a citation. Moreover the sentence as a whole (linking the first part to the "because" clause) is a non sequitur, which is what the previous Edit (reverted 4X) attempted to fix. Failure to provide citation for this paragraph and reversion to a non sequitur leaves it open to a characterization of either POV or disputed fact. Thomasmeeks 14:10, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

[no citation] for 3rd para. of Dating section. See Wikipedia:Citing sources, "Why sources should be cited" in which the following reasons for citation apply:

• To show that your edit isn't original research.
• To ensure that the content of articles is credible and can be checked by any reader or editor.
• To help users find additional reliable information on the topic.
• To improve the overall credibility and authoritative character of Wikipedia.
• To reduce the likelihood of editorial disputes, or to resolve any that arise.

If there is no source, that is original research, which is prohibited (Wikipedia:No original research). What is the source for this paragraph of the belief-argument-biblical-interpretation attribution to some Christians today? (typo redundancy edited out) Thomasmeeks 17:29, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

What exactly are you disputing? That some Christians believe the accuracy of Matthew 24:14? This is what the Bible has said for almost 2000 years, in what way is this "original research" ??? And as I have asked repeatedly, what is really your motivation for attacking this belief? It was some scholars who stated that Daniel refers to events of 164 BC, but this view is incompatible with Matthew 24:14, so either you accept Matthew 24:14, or you accept the scholars, but how can one possibly accept both, and why should only one view be presented??? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:40, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

3rd para. of Dating section: Christians who believe in the accuracy of the Gospels do not accept this interpretation, because Jesus is said in Matthew 24 to have quoted Daniel as a prophet who foretold events of the "end times" to immediately precede Judgement Day, and not in reference to Antiochus Epiphanes who had lived nearly 200 years before Jesus. Matthew 24:14

Thx for responding,# CS. Making unwarranted accusations against a fellow editor does not help you. By the way, I think you have in mind Matthew 24:15.

My motivation is to identify a paragraph that needs citation for all the reasons mentioned above.

The third paragraph of the Dating section was introduced on 11:33, 19 October 2006. If it is not original research, there should be no problem in citing a source in case of dispute. That is one use of citation. Disputed are:

• the first part (before the "because" clause). Someone who believes in the "accuracy" (an ill-defined term in this context --see above) of the Gospels need not accept that Daniel was right about all the details.
• conjunction of the "because" clause to the first part. That conjunction imputes a particular interpretation of Daniel to Jesus that is not required in the Gospel and a fortiori that is not required of those Christians today supposedly identified in the first part.

# It's more than happened after I left my first Oct. 29 message on your Talk page requesting a response. Thomasmeeks 20:22, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

This is a discussion that should involve all of the editors on this page, as I responded to you earlier several times, they should not be circumvented by attempting to hold the discussion on my talk page. I suspect that Matthew 24:15 is something you don't want mentioned or much attention being given to at all, because of what it says, and probably wish that it would just go away quietly and without any fuss, on whatever pretext you can think of to get rid of it. However, it is still there, and is unquestionably relevant to the Christian view of Daniel, so it is definitely going to have to be mentioned in some form. There are almost 2000 years worth of commentary on this particular verse, where you can find plenty of citation, if you have any doubts, or if you seriously think I am the first person in the world to notice what that verse says. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:30, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I did respond on the present Talk page in this section on Oct. 13 and 28. It is not all the editors who are reverting. To repeat what I said on your Talk page, the Matthew reference is fine. Its inclusion is not responsive to either of my points above. If I can find plenty of citations that would meet my points, why can't you find one? Thomasmeeks 22:17, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

What part do you not understand or agree with? The sentence reads:

Christians who believe in the accuracy of the Gospels do not accept this interpretation, because Jesus is said in Matthew 24 to have quoted Daniel as a prophet who foretold events of the "end times" to immediately precede Judgement Day, and not in reference to Antiochus Epiphanes who had lived nearly 200 years before Jesus. (Matthew 24:14)

• You don't dispute that in Matthew 24 Jesus quotes Daniel as referring to the future do you?
• You don't dispute that Antiochus lived nearly 200 years before Jesus do you?
• You don't argue that Jesus was talking about Antiochus in Matthew 24 do you?
• You don't dispute that some Christians accept the accuracy of Matthew 24:15 do you?

Please let me know what part you need a citation for so I will know what I am looking for. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 22:26, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

(Interjected after the comments below: The answer to each of the 4 questions you posed above is "No," as you correctly expected. But those answers are irrelevant to the points I made above, for reasons well indicated below (and above, come to think of it).) Thomasmeeks 19:40, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Codex, you need to verify from a reliable source that this is what Christians who believe in the accuracy of the gospel today think. A citation from the Bible obviously doesn't do this. An article in a peer reviewed journal or the report of such a statement from a major religious leader in a trusted newspaper (and preferable more than one) would be an adequate citation. -Siobhan Hansa 23:32, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I think you are either deliberately playing obstruse, or you have a reading comprehension difficulty. If they do not think this, then obviously they do not believe Matthew 24:15 is accurate. I am not talking about them. I am talking about the ones who believe that 24:15 IS accurate. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:37, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

I know who you're talking about, there's no need to attack either my good faith or my ability. I'm still pointing out that to have this in the article you need to have a citation from a reliable source that makes it clear this is a position still held by a significant group of people today. This isn't simply about drawing a logical conclusion, it's about the fact that wikipedia maintains a neutral point of view and refrains from becoming a publisher of people's personal essays by insisting we only report on previously published, significant arguments. If you want to talk about this in the article some-else needs to have said it first, in a reliable source. --Siobhan Hansa 23:50, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

So let me get this straight - you actually want a citation that there are some Christians today who regard Matthew 24:15 as accurate??? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 23:54, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Oh, come off it. The point is that we shouldn't describe such Christians as "Christians who believe in the accuracy of the Gospels," which is incredibly loaded and implies that any Christian who thinks that Daniel was not written in the 6th century BC does not believe in the accuracy of the Gospels. We should say "conservative Christians" or "fundamentalist Christians," if we're going to have this business. john k 23:58, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

No, no, no - those are the ones I'm NOT talking about - once again, if they agree to the accuracy of Matthew 24:15, there is no way they can possibly assume Jesus was talking about Antiochus. That is axiomatic. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:03, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

If you have a valid reference that says there are some people today who abc, then you can write "according to [source of reference] there are some people today today who believe abc". But you want to say "this particular group of people believe xyz because of abc" So you need a valid reference that says this particular group of people believe xyz because of abc". -- Siobhan Hansa 00:24, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Matthew 24:15 says it all. Now it seems you are needing a source that some Christians today believe Matthew 24:15 is accurate - right? This is a book about the Book of Daniel. Matthew 24:15 directly reflects on Christian views of Daniel. If you or any group of editors exclude discussion of this Gospel verse from the Daniel article on specious grounds, it amounts to anti-religious bigotry. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 00:31, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Once again I ask you not to make personal attacks. Requests for a source in line with Wikipedia policy are not anti-religious bigotry. And once again I repeat, you need a modern source that includes the entire argument, if you want to connect Matthew 24:15 to Daniel in this precise way, you need a reliable source to have done so for you. It is not specious to insist that arguments in an article have been previously published by a reliable source. It's one of the pillars of Wikipedia. --Siobhan Hansa 01:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed anti-religious bigotry. A source is not required to connect Matthew 24:15 to Daniel. Any fool with basic reading skills can pick up a Bible and read Matthew 24:15 and see that it mentions Daniel. Therefore there is no argument, only your anti-religiouis bigotry that is attempting to keep this FACT out of the article on spurious grounds. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 02:05, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

(resetting indent) If it's so basic, I'm sure you'll have no trouble finding a reliable source in which the same argument is made. A source isn't required to connect Matthew to Daniel (at least I'm not arguing that), a source is required to establish the significance of the assertion, and to help define some of the terms used. this is because Wikipedia articles are supposed to reflect the significant views of experts in the field, not your exploration of the the subject. In the mean time, please try to stay cool and address the issues at hand rather than attacking those with whom you have a disagreement. -Siobhan Hansa 02:28, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I have already provided the source. Matthew 24:15 makes the argument by itself. If the verse is accurate, then Jesus was not talking about a king who lived 200 years before him. Please make up your mind specifically which fact you would like additional citation for, and I promise I will do my best to find it. Is it a) the fact that this verse really is in the Gospel, and really does mention Daniel in connection with the future End Times; b) the fact that some Christians today do accept this verse as accurate; or c) the fact that Antiochus lived some 200 years before the Gospel...? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 02:42, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Codex, you've been around a long time, so surely you can see how this is blatantly original research? You are advancing the novel proposition that the only way one can believe "this verse is accurate" (whatever, precisely, that means) is by believing that the Book of Daniel was written in the 6th century BC. This is nonsense. Jesus is speaking to an audience. That audience, from what we know, clearly understood Daniel as referring to a future time. Even if Daniel really did refer literally to Antiochus, and Jesus really did know this because he was the omniscient Son of God, there isn't any contradiction with him using the verse to illustrate a point. At a minimum, one could argue that the verse both refers to Antiochus and also illustrates a larger prophetic point. You can't assert your own literalistic readings of the Bible as though they are the only interpretation. You can't even assert them as an interpretation which should be in the article unless you can actually find a real source that makes this argument. john k 03:09, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

No, it's not Original Research. It's in the Gospel, in plain black and white, and it is very simple. I can more easily look for a source that will satisfy you, if you will just tell me what fact you are disputing. Is it a) the fact that this verse really is in the Gospel, and really does mention Daniel in connection with the future End Times; b) the fact that some Christians today do accept this verse as accurate; or c) the fact that Antiochus lived some 200 years before the Gospel...? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 03:15, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

I dispute your interpretation of "b," but beyond that, it's not those three points, it's the fact that you're combining them in a novel way that basically makes it seem as though Christians who do not believe this are not "real Christians." john k 04:07, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this does appear to come under "original research". We are not allowed to use our "common sense" to link two obvious facts together and draw a conclusion from them: we must either present the facts without comment and "let the facts speak for themselves", or we must cite somebody else who has linked them to arrive at that conclusion. Also, the phrase "accuracy of the gospels" is problematic, because it's possible to assume that the gospels are a 100% accurate historical record and STILL assume that Jesus was wrong, or that the text was written in Maccabean times but nevertheless referred to the "end-times", or that Jesus was reading a new meaning into a Maccabean text, or whatever. --Robert Stevens 09:38, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

This is referenced above more than once, but it may be worth making even more explicit: Wiki content "must be verifiable" (I'm staring at that phrase below the Edit window now), as specified in Wikipedia:Verifiability). I believe that the only reason that no one commenting has deleted the paragraph in question is to give the editor who inserted it a reasonable period of time to cite a reliable source. Thomasmeeks 12:00, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

If it is deleted, I will dispute the neutrality of the article and call for mediation, because WP:NPOV states that articles are to include all significant viewpoints, not exclude any, and not present only one viewpoint as if it were the only one. The Gospel reflects a very significant viewpoint on the Book of Daniel. You have been pushing for some time now to exclude this viewpoint, and present only the contradictory viewpoint originated by certain scholars, for reasons that, if they aren't religious bigotry, I fail to understand. If a major viewpoint is not addressed in some form or fashion that is accurate and an acceptable compromise to all parties, I am definitely going to cry foul, appealing all the way up the chain of command, for as long as it takes, because that is blatant censorship and suppression. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:36, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The gospels themselves don't have a "viewpoint" on this: they don't say when Daniel was written. If a significant number of Christians have a viewpoint that claims to be based on what the gospels say (plus some additional assumptions regarding their "acurracy" and Jesus' supposed reasons for saying what he is alleged to have said), then you should be able to provide a citation (and hopefully tidy up the "accuracy of the gospels" comment, as this means different things to different people). This isn't about censorship, this is about consistent application of the rules. --Robert Stevens 14:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Well I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that perhaps you did not know this is a huge topic, so huge there are whole mailing lists devoted to the very subject of Daniel's application in end-times prophecy. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:39, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The relevant, non-truncated quotation from Wikipedia:Neutral point of view is:

All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), representing fairly and without bias all significant views that have been published by a reliable source.

Failure to observe the highlighted standard itself violates NPOV. -- Thomasmeeks 16:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

What I am saying is that there are almost 2000 years worth of published sources -- commentaries on the meaning of this very verse in Matthew, beginning from the first century writers, up til the present day... I'm a little surprised that you don't seem to realize this. Giving a source can easily be done, but the really hard part is picking just one to stand for all the rest - there are literally so many books etc. on the topic, that it might just warrant a separate article page, strictly on Christian interpretation of Daniel as prophesying future events of the last days. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:58, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the "...who accept the accuracy of the gospels" comment. It implies that those Christians who disagree don't accept the accuracy of the gospels, which is somewhat POV, especially as there are other possible Christian explanations which don't require an assumption of an inaccurate gospel. --Robert Stevens 17:16, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I don't think the sense suffers for it, and is hopefully now more NPOV. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:19, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't think anybody disputes that conservative Christians a) believe that Daniel was written in the 6th century BC; or b) believe that it contains prophecies of the end-times. Beyond that, what you are trying to do is to define these Christians as being identical to "Christians who believe in the accuracy of the Gospels." That's a ridiculously POV way of putting it, especially when there's more NPOV alternatives - traditional Christians, conservative Christians, whatever. The fact is that you are basically wording things in such a way as to deny the Christianity of anyone who doesn't think the Book of Daniel is from the 6th century. john k 20:11, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

That's not saying exactly the same thing as denying anyone's Christianity - but at any rate, I do not have any objection to the current wording of Robert Stevens that is minus these words, since they are not really necessary to the point, and the pov objection to them is understandable. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:52, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

The deletion of this paragraph:

Some Christians do not accept this interpretation, because Jesus is said in Matthew 24:15 to have quoted Daniel as a prophet who foretold events of the "end times" to immediately precede Judgement Day, and not in reference to Antiochus Epiphanes who had lived nearly 200 years before Jesus.

with the explanation:

We already say that some Christians don't accept the earlier date. It doesn't make sense to say "some Christians accept the earlier date, but many scholars disagree, but some Christians disagree."

triggered a "The neutrality of this section is disputed" template with the explanation:

The significant opposing viewpoint has been cut from this section and is no longer present.

The paragraph in question was disputed and needed citation according to Wikipedia:Verifiability standards. Rather than posting a template whose origin is itself open to the charge of non-neutrality, modifying the paragraph to fit whatever could be verified would be seem to be a more satisfactory resolution. Thomasmeeks 13:59, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

If there is any question in your mind, Thomas, as to whether or not I dispute this section, the answer is a definite YES I DO DISPUTE THIS SECTION. Please do not be thick-headed. Wikipedia's NPOV policy demands that ALL POINTS OF VIEW BE REPRESENTED. You have done your level best to make sure that only one point of view is represented, while one point of view is NOT REPRESENTED, and the result is not NPOV. THIS WILL CONTINUE TO BE DISPUTED INDEFINITELY UNTIL THE OTHER POV IS ADDRESSED IN A MANNER THAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO EVERYONE. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:04, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

(Interjected after exchange below) :::Well, good morning to you too. Some of someone's comments above violate Wikipedia:No personal attacks, which is required on Talk pages as elsewhere. On the substance, there is no necessary conflict between representing arguments or interpretations (obscured by reference to 'views') and Wikipedia:Verifiability. Thomasmeeks 15:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Wow, all in bold, and partially ALL CAPS. Well done, Codex. I don't see how the Christian view is not addressed. It is mentioned first. Then it is mentioned that many scholars disagree with it. I don't see why it is NPOV to then go back and mention again that Christians don't agree, especially given that you are using an argument for which you have not provided any citations. Even if you could provide citations, I find it problematic to include this particular argument, because it seems to be giving undue weight to one out of a large number of arguments that fundamentalists/inerrantists make for the age of Daniel. In particular, this is one of the large class of completely circular arguments for the inerrancy of the Bible. "How can you say the Bible has errors in it? The Bible itself says that it does not have any errors!" For such arguments, see Begging the question. Obviously people who believe the Bible is inerrant believe Daniel is what it says it is. john k 14:33, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

The bold happened because I hit semicolon instead of a colon. As I said just above: "What I am saying is that there are almost 2000 years worth of published sources -- commentaries on the meaning of this very verse in Matthew, beginning from the first century writers, up til the present day... I'm a little surprised that you don't seem to realize this. Giving a source can easily be done, but the really hard part is picking just one to stand for all the rest - there are literally so many books etc. on the topic, that it might just warrant a separate article page, strictly on Christian interpretation of Daniel as prophesying future events of the last days." What I said about the topic of Christian interpretation of Daniel being such a weighty and voluminous topic as to warrant a dedicated article still stands. There is a vast amount of Christian literature on the subject throughout history, and you can't simply suppress this viewpoint in the dating section and call it adhering to WP:NPOV. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Once again, how is it supressing the Christian viewpoint to mention it first? Nobody is denying that the Christian traditional viewpoint is that it was written by the Prophet Daniel in the 6th Century BC, and that this should be mentioned in the article. john k 18:54, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It is suppressing the Christian viewpoint which largely, through the centuries, has been framed around commentaries and analysis of Matt.24:15, to not even allow the Gospel to be mentioned by name. That's really what this is about. The Gospel quote is 100% relevant to the Christian viewpoint, including the authenticity and dating of Daniel, but you seem highly inimical to the Gospel even being mentioned in this context. Its hard to have any fair discussion at all of the Christian viewpoint without mentioning this, or in the face of such bigotry as we've seen here. The Churches have got a right to a viewpoint on Daniel, it is most significant to the article, and it is being wrongly suppressed.ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

If you can source that this argument is the main argument used to defend an early date for Daniel, then by all means put it in, but the previous format was something along the lines of. "Traditional christians believe in an early date, but modern scholars disagree, but conservative christians disagree." This, I will continue to insist, was a very awkward way of writing about it. john k 21:20, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

One way of handling it would be to state in the opening paragraph of the section that people (other than some scholars) today accept early dating. As currently written, the first 2 paragraphs might be (wrongly) read as saying that the traditionalists were all dead except for some Biblical scholars. Thomasmeeks 21:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

"The neutrality of this section is disputed" template in the Dating section of the article had this Edit summary:

The significant opposing viewpoint has been cut from this section and is no longer present.

The new edit of Dating section inserts the following as the 2nd sentence:

A significant number, though far from all, in the Judeo-Christian tradition continue to believe this today.

So, an opposing viewpoint is now explicitly represented. Thomasmeeks 18:04, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't remove the POV template. I will remove it myself when I no longer dispute the article, which is when I feel the viewpoint you are suppressing is being adequately represented. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 18:19, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I haven't suppressed any viewpoint.* The above thread certainly does not support that accusation. Please review talk page guidelines.

*Surely you cannot believe that my deleting a Wiki template that does not apply as to the reason you gave is suppression of a viewpoint. Thomasmeeks 19:31, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Of course not, the suppression is of the significant reasons for believing the book to date to the 6th century. Re-read the thread again if your memory is so short. The dispute has not magically gone away, and neither have I, so don't remove the template until there is a compromise. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 19:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

You have not retracted your false assertion about me as to suppression. In that respect your Edit above remains in violation of talk page guidelines.

The new 2nd sentence in the Dating section ("A significant number,... ") met the reason you expressed in your Edit summary as to the reason for your template. But it was was insufficient, according to you, bacause of "the suppression is of the significant reasons for believing the book to date to the 6th century." The problems with your the deleted argument were discussed at length for your benefit in the above threads. So, the Talk-Page-consensus method of resolution that you earlier urged applies to others but not you. Thomasmeeks 05:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, well it doesn't look like this dispute is going to be resolved or compromise is going to be reached any time soon, so you had better not unilaterally remove the template until you are prepared to admit into the article, an honest discussion of the reasons why it is believed to date to the 6th century instead of suppressing them from the article. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 05:08, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I repeat that you have not retracted your false assertion about me as to suppression and that in that respect your Edit above remains in violation of talk page guidelines.

If you did wish to re-introduce the deleted material, a plausible place to do it would be near the beginning where the belief is mentioned. It would also have to meet Wikipedia guidelines raised above as to NPOV, verifiability in a reliable source, and no original research. By not meeting those objections, you concede their validity by implicature. It should be an embarrasment to claim a violation of Wiki standards for deletion of material itself that violates Wiki standards. Thomasmeeks 12:03, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

It certainly does not follow from anything said so far that this dispute is now over, and / or that the "disputed POV" flag can be summarily removed. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 12:31, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

There is some value in retaining a public record of what can go wrong with a persistent flouting of Wikipedia guidelines and standards. Have a good day anyhow. Thomasmeeks 13:00, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Oeralp - i would like to thank the participants in this long and passionate debate and offer a citation. Dr. Gene Scott is in an evangelical preacher (deceased) and bible scholar. He disputes the post-dating of Daniel in his Revelation series (Revelation 1-A #688, Oct 20, 1980), and references several additional biblical sources and scholars. I personally feel that biblical dating is highly complex and controversial due to highly fragmentary archeological sources. A new source could be discovered that back-dates Daniel and that would be another controversy. I feel the article is well-balanced. I happen to agree with Gene Scott's analysis but wholly accept that a) it is not conclusive, b) not essential to Christian (or any other) faith. I thank Wikipedia for taking on important scholarship despite divergant views. [previous signature deleted]

+++++

Concerning current article Edit, Dating section:

06:33, 24 February 2007 PiCo (Talk | contribs) (tried to clean this up to remove the pov - revert if you think it's no better than the original.)

an improvement, yes. And if it comes down to a vote, count me as a "Yes." It better represents a scholarly consensus. I did not Edit to allow for study and comment, but I believe that the 2nd sentence of this section:

For a variety of reasons this position is no longer held by modern scholars, who believe that the book reached its final form (except for possible minor glosses) around 164 BC (Hartman and Di Lella, 1990, p. 408; Towner, 1993, p. 151);

would be more acceptable to a wider group Edited as:

For a variety of reasons this position does not reflect a consensus of modern scholars. Rather, a consensus is that the book reached its final form (except for possible minor glosses) around 164 BC (Hartman and Di Lella, 1990, p. 408; Towner, 1993, p. 151);

This has the advantage of immediate attestation from general scholarly sources without suggesting that any scholar dissenting is by that fact unmodern. A watering down? Yes, but transparently (and possibly more acceptably) so. --Thomasmeeks 13:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Jesus' opinion of the Book of Daniel

I don't think anyone here has addressed this issue, namely, what was Jesus' opinion of the authenticity of the Book of Daniel. Let's assume that if Jesus was God, He would not be in error, and would not "promote" the teachings or work of someone who was a blatant liar. With that assumption, the following comment of Jesus,

"'Therefore when you see the "abomination of desolation" spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place'...'then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.'" (Matthew 24:15-16),

affirms the accuracy and truthfulness of the Book of Daniel, via affirming the truthfulness and accuracy of Daniel as a "prophet". The point is, if the Book of Daniel was NOT written by the person identified in the Book of Daniel as Daniel, and if Daniel did not in fact experience what he claimed to have experienced, when he claimed to have experienced them (in particular, having several futuristic visions around the time of the Babylonian captivity, to within 70 or so years afterwards), then Jesus is not God, since God would not call someone who PRETENDED, FALSELY, to be a prophet a "prophet".

Thus, the issue of the timing of the writing of the Book of Daniel has implications for the truth of the Gospel, and the identity of Jesus as God. Note, of course, that in this missive, I have not argued (so far) as to when the Book of Daniel was written - all I have done is point out the issues involved.

For myself, I am utterly convinced of the early (in the 6th century B.C.) authorship of the Book of Daniel.

There is no "Gospel of Jesus", so basically you're just assuming that a comment in another book (written by yet another human author) is accurate about what Jesus said. In addition to assuming that Jesus knew what he was talking about, of course. --Robert Stevens 10:07, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Once again, this is not a viewpoint based on scholarship, but one based on religious dogma. It is a significant viewpoint, and should be mentioned in the article, but it should be mentioned as a religious viewpoint, not as a scholarly one. Your arguments are, additionally, completely unconvincing to anybody who is not already a Christian fundamentalist. For those of us who reject Biblical inerrancy (and that includes many Christians and observant Jews, as well as us secular types), it is completely irrelevant. john k 13:13, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

There's that condescending pov on your part once again, that 'religious' and 'scholarly' are mutually exclusive. Why cannot someone be both? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 13:19, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

"Religion" is different from "Scholarship". A religious person can have scholarly arguments for their fundamentalist ideas. For instance, a fundamentalist Christian scholar who believes in the antiquity of the book of Daniel could, theoretically, point to linguistic arguments for dating the book to the 6th century. They could point, theoretically, to accurate knowledge of Babylonian or Persian court life that a 2nd century writer would be unlikely to have. And so forth. But it's utterly begging the question to point to Biblical inerrancy as evidence of Biblical inerrancy. That's not scholarship, and it can't be scholarship. john k 14:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Again, a scholarly argument is one that ought to be persuasive to anybody, whatever their religious views. Arguing that because the Gospel of Matthew has Jesus quote Daniel, that means that it's right because Jesus is God, is explicitly one that anybody who doubts the inerrancy of the Gospel of Matthew cannot possibly find persuasive. It's not scholarship, it can't be scholarship. I'm not even sure it's apologetics. It's a tautology. john k 14:08, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You are quite correct that in accordance with WP:NPOV this is a significant viewpoint, and therefore should be mentioned with proper attributation. But my point is, there IS such a thing as a "religious scholar". There would be nothing wrong with attributing this viewpoint as a viewpoint of certain religious scholars, for example. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 15:17, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

The term "religious scholar" is deeply imprecise. What exactly do you mean by this? The viewpoint described above is, at any rate, not a scholarly viewpoint. It is a religious viewpoint. A scholar might hold this view, but this particular argument is not one that is scholarly. No peer-reviewed journal would ever publish such an argument, for instance. Someone who believes this argument might be able to publish an article arguing for the age of the Book of Daniel based on other reasons, as I discussed above. But the argument that "Jesus quotes Daniel, therefore Daniel must not be a later work" is not a scholarly one. At all. I would suggest that it is not an argument at all. Basically, the argument is "this one part of the Bible is inerrant because, if we assume Biblical inerrancy, its truth is held up by this other part of the Bible." It is begging the question, it is preaching to the choir, and it would be a joke to label this viewpoint a scholarly one. Again, this does not mean that Christian fundamentalists cannot produce scholarship. But we should distinguish views that are basically religious from views that are basically scholarly. I have no problem with including views by fundamentalist scholars, so long as they can genuinely be determined to be real scholars, with some respectability outside fundamentalist circles. But I strongly object to acting as though fundamentalist theology is equivalent to genine scholarship. john k 15:52, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Well this is your blatant POV showing again, because there ARE religious scholars through the centuries, and they DO make this very argument. Your redefinition of the word "scholar" to exclude religious scholars, or asserting that only non-religious scholars engage in "genuine" scholarship is clearly your POV. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You basically seem to be arguing that this viewpoint cannot be labelled as "scholarly", because it relies on a source that you personally find objectionable, namely, the words attributed to Jesus Christ. However, it is widely recognized that those words can indeed form the basis of scholarship, even if you refuse to recognise it as such. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:06, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

I say that this viewpoint cannot be labelled as "scholarly" because it begs the question. The Book of Daniel is what it purports to be because, assuming that the Bible is inerrant, there are other Biblical passages that say that it is what it purports to be. This is not an argument. It is a textbook example of a fallacy. The question of whether the Bible is inerrant is precisely the one under dispute. All the text from the Gospel of Matthew illustrates it that the author of the Gospel of Matthew believed the Book of Daniel to be genuine. The whole premise of the argument falls back into itself. The argument, which is essentially an argument for biblical inerrancy, is only convincing to people who already accept biblical inerrancy. Even if one is a Christian, one can only accept this particular statement as having any weight if it can be assumed that Matthew is, in this instance, accurately reporting the words of Jesus. There is no particular reason to assume that he is, unless one has already accepted a traditionalist view of the Bible. The whole thing is entirely worthless. john k 17:12, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Quite aside from 'biblical inerrancy', the scholarly argument seems to be that a Christian document refers to a separate Jewish document. This can certainly be used in a scholarly fashion to back up the notion that not everyone in the first century AD thought that the specific end-times prophecies had all been fulfilled in the second century BC, just as not everyone thinks so today for much the same reason. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:20, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

That would be a scholarly argument. This is not what the anon user who added the comment above stated at all. Their claim is that because Jesus Christ Himself quotes the Book of Daniel, it must be genuine scripture, and thus must be what it claims to be. john k 17:25, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

In response to the following comment by "john k",

"[The anon user's {i.e., me, Douglas}] claim is that because Jesus Christ Himself quotes the Book of Daniel, it must be genuine scripture, and thus must be what it claims to be."

I would like to say, "No, that's not my claim, at least in its most general, direct, form.". You have it ALMOST right, but not quite. My "claim" is that because Jesus Himself quotes the Book of Daniel AND calls Daniel a "prophet", it is either the case that Jesus is God and Daniel was a true prophet and therefore the Book of Daniel had an "early" writing (circa the 6th century B.C.), OR Jesus is not God and Daniel was not a true prophet and the Book of Daniel had a "later" writing (circa roughly 165 B.C. or thereabouts). Only for those who believe in Jesus as God would the argument therefore imply that the Book of Daniel was written "early". (It would directly follow, of course, that anyone, in the face of Jesus' comment from Matthew, who claimed to believe in God but still believed the Book of Daniel had a "later" writing would therefore not believe in Jesus as God, or would not believe God is incapable of error, or would not believe that God is incapable of lying.) [Douglas J. Bender (Elkhart, IN)]

Plenty of people believe that "Jesus is God", but nevertheless accept that the Book of Daniel was written in the 2nd century BC. It is incorrect to label early-authorship as "the Christian position" and late-authorship as "the non-Christian position". You are merely repeating the inerrantist fallacy: the belief (rejected by most Christians) that a "true Christian" must regard the Bible as inerrant. --Robert Stevens 09:49, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

"Plenty of people believe that "Jesus is God", but nevertheless accept that the Book of Daniel was written in the 2nd century BC." -- How can this be so? Do they believe Jesus is God, but reject the Gospel? ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 11:20, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Robert Stevens: "Plenty of people believe that 'Jesus is God', but nevertheless accept that the Book of Daniel was written in the 2nd century BC." -- Not once they have been confronted with Jesus' opinion of the Book of Daniel, no. My logic in this regard is irrefutable, though you apparently do not understand it. Again, either a person must accept that Jesus is not God, or that the Bible is not always trustworthy (in particular in what it claims Jesus said and did, which would thus undermine the very foundation for faith in Jesus as God), or that God is capable of error, or that God is capable of lying, OR they accept that Jesus is God AND that the Book of Daniel was written sometime in the 6th century B.C. or so. There are no other logical possibilities, and I've already detailed the logic involved.

Robert Stevens: "It is incorrect to label early-authorship as 'the Christian position' and late-authorship as 'the non-Christian position'. You are merely repeating the inerrantist fallacy: the belief (rejected by most Christians) that a 'true Christian' must regard the Bible as inerrant." -- No, that's not the argument I was using. However, I am curious how you would define a "true Christian". Does a "true Christian" need to believe that Jesus is God? (This question is relevant to this issue - if we aren't using terms with the same meaning, we will be talking past each other.) [Douglas J. Bender]

Douglas, your argument is illogical, because you are ignoring or dismissing the logical possibility that "Jesus is God, but the Bible contains some falsehoods" (which is actually the view of most mainstream Christians). You may not agree with this view, but that doesn't make it logically invalid. --Robert Stevens 15:53, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

...For completeness, I'll add another couple of possibilities based on arguments that I've seen Christians use (in other contexts). Some have claimed that "Jesus wasn't omniscient during his time on Earth" (to explain verses in which JC seems ignorant of the divine plan), implying that he might not know about the authorship of Daniel. I've also seen claims that Jesus spoke to people in terms they would understand, without bothering to correct factual inaccuracies that were irrelevant to his message, implying that he 'might not care about the authorship of Daniel. --Robert Stevens 16:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

When you read what Jesus is quoted as having actually said about the Book of Daniel, it's pretty hard to make either of those cases, and I have never before heard of anyone doing so. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:34, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Robert Stevens: "Douglas, your argument is illogical, because you are ignoring or dismissing the logical possibility that 'Jesus is God, but the Bible contains some falsehoods' (which is actually the view of most mainstream Christians). You may not agree with this view, but that doesn't make it logically invalid." -- I don't see that view as being a logical possibility, really. Consider the implications if it were true: If the Bible "contains some falsehoods" (not mere "typos", mind you), then how does one determine if its more "extreme" claims are valid or true? If Jesus is God, would He not be able to keep the only record of His life and ministry free from error? The answer is, of course, yes. A second question would then be, if Jesus is God, would He not desire to keep the only record of His life and ministry free from error (after all, if it contained any errors, it would detract from His mission, which [according to the Bible] was to save the world from sin, since it would cast doubt upon the testimony regarding Jesus contained in the Bible). The answer is, again, certainly yes. Therefore, my previous logic still holds: one cannot logically and consistently maintain that Jesus is God AND that the Book of Daniel was written at a "later" period. [Douglas J. Bender]

...And yet most Christians are well aware that the Bible does contain errors. Indeed, even most "inerrantists" know this: they admit to "copyist errors" and maintain that only the "original manuscripts" (now conveniently lost) were "inerrant". Therefore your counter-argument does not hold. I don't need to justify the beliefs of mainstream Christians to you (as I'm not a Christian myself): I merely note that this is their belief, and they seem content with it. They accept that, for whatever reason, the text was NOT miraculously preserved from all error. Furthermore, a Christian is supposed to have a "relationship with the living Christ", not the Bible: hence the accusations of "Bibliolatry" against inerrantists. --Robert Stevens 10:24, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

(Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm still around, and planning to address the above claims [as well as the below claims]. I will "return" later this week and edit this comment out, replacing it with my response.) [Douglas J. Bender]

Those parts of the New Testament that say Rabbi Yeshua taught from the Book of Daniel, and that say he stressed its crucial importance to the future tribulation and to the final days before his return, could not have arisen through a mere "copyist error". But it's good to study more. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 12:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

...And how is the date of Daniel's authorship relevant here? If Jesus (or the gospel author) thought that what the book had to say about these things was relevant: why should he care when it was written? The book says what it says: regardless of who wrote it, or when. --Robert Stevens 15:15, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Learned about this today from a Biblical scholar: The "Jesus as God but not omniscient" school has by now a pedigree: Kenosis (see also Charles Gore). Thomasmeeks 21:37, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

John Collins and "court tales"

John Collins finds it impossible for the "court tales" portion of Daniel to have been written in second Century BC due to textual analysis. In his 1992 Anchor Bible Dictionary entry for the Book of Daniel, he states "it is clear that the court-tales in chapters 1-6 were not 'written in Maccabean times'. It is not even possible to isolate a single verse which betrays an editorial insertion from that period."

In a recent edit, the following was removed: Some scholars disagree with this, and still date this section to the Maccabean revolt along with the vision chapters. The reason given: "redundant, already mentioned several times". But it looks like information has been lost here: I'm not seeing where else the text describes scholars who are apparently aware of this specific claim and disagree with it. The reader is now left with the impression that Collins has found something that others haven't noticed: the original text gives a different impression. POV has subtly changed. --Robert Stevens 13:39, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

It ought to have a citation to the "some scholars" who disagree with COllins' specific claim, if there is one... The article already mentions several times that scholars have statefd the exact opposit, but this suggests there are scholars who have specifically responded to Collins... If so, they should be mentioned. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 14:21, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. Maybe restore the original wording with a "citation needed" tag? --Robert Stevens 15:28, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Minor Correction

Corrected a reference to http://www.2think.org/hundredsheep/bible/comment/daniel.shtml (which I wrote).

--Curtvdh 04:47, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

"Prophecy of 70 weeks" material

Anonymous user 12.175.230.58 has added a lengthy section on the "Prophecy of 70 weeks". But there's already a specific page on this, Prophecy of Seventy Weeks, linked from "Daniel". Furthermore, this material contains POV statements such as "Modern scholars not withstanding, some of the best evidence for the age of the book of Daniel...", "An critical look at the attempted Maccabaean fulfillment of this prophecy will show that in fact the Maccabaeans attempted to fit the events of their lifetime to the already existing prophecy", "The available historical evidence does show that both the prophecies of Daniel 9 and Daniel 12 were written at some point prior to the events surrounding the Maccabaean era". Furthermore, it appears to be apologetics, referring to "prophetic years" and so forth (generally an apologetic device for use when calendar years don't give the "right answer"), and relies on an unsupported claim that skeptics rely on such "prophetic years". --Robert Stevens 12:16, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

 I have added a note the discussion on that page regarding another POV. --Curtvdh 19:30, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

I have now snipped out this section. In addition to the aforementioned issues, it was entirely devoid of citations in any case: apparently one apologist's "original research". --Robert Stevens 08:57, 20 October 2006 (UTC)