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Section on "Structure"

It seems to me that the section on structure, while well intended, is representative of only one point of view and not particularly illuminating. I would like to see a little more information on alternative views and an indication of the structural complexity of of the work, especially as it illuminates theme and meaning. An obvious example is the movement in the "visions" section of the book from general to specific, from the broad vision of a succession of four kingdoms to the very specific location of a particular 2nd centure crisis in chapter 11.

--Sineaste 06:46, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

There are some alternative views on the literary structure found below, i.e. the idea that the book was thought to be divided between narrative and apocalyptic sections. But such a literary division has no biblical basis, whereas the chiastic structure is a common Biblical literary device. As noted in the text, the chaistic structure explains puzzling points such as out-of-order narratives, the division between the Chaldean and Hebrew sections, and the parallel arrangement of the visions. These are points that no other literary discussion satisfactorily explains.

One would want to put discussion on theme and meaning illuminated by a literary structure in a different section. Other existing sections deal with theme and meaning, but not well tied to any literary structure.

The idea that chapter 11 deals with the 2nd century is deeply flawed. The successive visions deal in greater and greater detail the whole basic outline of Chapter 2--from Babylon to the set up of God's kingdom. Allenroyboy 16:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm rather surprised at the suggestion that any structuration of Daniel apart from the double chiasm proposed by William Shea is unbiblical. Shea is a prolific and rather conservative Seventh Day Adventist scholar who believes, for example, in the historicity of the Genesis flood story. This conservatism seems to have influenced the way he has structured the second part of the book, resorting to the artificial division of chapter nine into four parts - when it is clearly a self contained unit - in order to impose a new testament christological understanding on ch 9.26, "The Messiah Dies Alone", to make it the fulcrum of the books message. Shea also artifically separates chapers 10-12 into two units when it is clearly one and consigns chapter one to a "historical prologue" when it contains a trial story with a similar narrative pattern to those of chapters three and six.

I agree completely that chiastic or concentric structure is a fundamental feature of biblical poetry and literature which can be found across verses, chapters or literary units and whole books (Revelation is a well documented example). The structure of Daniel, however, is a little more complex than Shea would have us believe. While I agree that there are chiastic markers for chapters 2-7 an equally compelling case could be made for a similar structure in chapters 1-5, the chapters that recount court stories from the Babylonian period. Chapter one records the destruction of Jerusalem, the transportation of temple objects, and a trial story about Daniel's refusal to eat "defiled" food from the king's table and consequent elevation. Chapter five records the overthrow of Babylon, mentions the same temple objects, and recounts a feast hosted by the king who is tried, "found wanting" and deposed. Chapters two and four describe dreams of Nebuchadnezzar which are interpreted by Daniel and Daniel's "hymn" in chapter two is paralleled by similar poetic utterances by Nebuchadnezzar in chapter four. The central tale concerns the trial and fidelity of Daniel's friends in his absence, echoing the story of chapter one and contrasting with the blasphemous behaviour of Belshazzar and his nobles in chapter five.

Similarly there are clear thematic and structural markers for a break between chapters one to six and seven to ten, as indicated in the introduction to this article. The court tales of one to six give way to dreams and visions experienced by Daniel (rather than Babylonian kings) and recounted by him in the first person. Among other structural features there is a clear AABB structure indicated here as the first two dream stories involving beasts and animals give way to extended angelic interpretations elicited by prayer (chapter 9) and fasting (chapters 10-12). This structural feature of course overlaps with the correctly observed chiasm of chapters 2-7 (the Aramaic section), the inclusio of chapters two and seven (both concern a four kingdom succession) suggesting that the latter part of the book interprets and elaborates on the basic historical schema of chapter two.

It is also rather silly to say that structure has nothing to do with theme and meaning. Broad structural overviews allow us to observe the development and progression of key themes and provide a system of checks and balances which help prevent eccentric interpretations of isolated verses and sections. My understanding of chiastic structure is that it highlights the central unit and I am sure that William Shea would be rather horrified to hear that his section D in which "The Messiah Dies alone" is a purely structural feature which is unrelated to the message and meaning of the book.

Finally the assertion that chapter 11 contains no reference to Antiochus Epiphanes goes against all critical scholarship (as noted in the introduction) and a great deal of conservative christian scholarship (which frequently admits that the historical progression in chapter 11 contains reference to second century events). It is quite correct to say that the original vision of four kingdoms is explained in progressively greater detail in the last chapters but the fact is that the historical horizon of chapter 11, where we get the most detail, does not extend beyond the second century BCE. Any assertion to the contrary is based on conservative christian commitment to the belief that the prophecies of Daniel must "be true" and "come true" no matter what the evidence. Because the prophecies extend to the establishment of an "everlasting kingdom" the scope of the visions must, according to this view, encompass all history from Daniel's time to the present. This is a perfect example of christian fundamentalists championing literal interpretation of the bible but in fact being rather selective in what they take literally, forcing the data to fit with predetermined beliefs rather than letting it speak for itself. Another relevant example is the refusal to accept the literal meaning of the book of Revelation which is addressed to seven historical christian communities in first century Asia Minor and which repeatedly states that "the time is near" and that the events described in the book "must soon take place".

--Sineaste 04:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

If you go the the source you will see that Shea did not originate the chiasm literary structure, but did refine it. Associated with it is this chiasm of vs 25-27

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prophecy_of_Seventy_Weeks#Literary_structure

William H. Shea observed that verses 25-27 form a chiasm (also explained here):

A. Daniel 9:25a

Jerusalem Construction:

Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem

B. Daniel 9:25b

Messiah:

until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens' and sixty-two 'sevens.'

C. Daniel 9:25c

Jerusalem Construction:

It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble.

D. Daniel 9:26a

Messiah:

After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off, but not for himself.

C'. Daniel 9:26b

Jerusalem Destroyed:

The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed.

B'. Daniel 9:27a

Messiah:

And he shall confirm a covenant with the many [for] one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,

A'. Daniel 9:27b

Jerusalem Destroyed:

and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

Again, Shea did not invent this chiasm either.

Most Christians pay little attention to "critical scholars," especially those who are unbelievers. The Bible says it is spiritually discerned, thus unbelievers haven't a clue. It is true that some Christian scholars accept the idea of Antiochus, but Antiochus was such a weak fool that the Romans drew a circle around him in the sand and dared him to step out of it. He did not. That is hardly the powerful king described in 11.

All four prophecies of Daniel (2,7,8,11-12) are parallel with each other, beginning in Daniels day and ending with the set up of God's kingdom. God's kingdom is not yet set up. Allenroyboy 19:26, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

I have no issue with Shea finding a chiasm in 9:25-27, although it is not particularly convincing, but I do have a problem with him making this the structural centre of the book. Again I believe that dogmatic presuppositions have overruled common sense here. The poetic description of the "judgement scene" in chapter seven (v9-10) is also a chiasm (and a far more obvious one) but that does not automatically make it the focal point of the book.

Also, the way Shea separates chapter seven structurally from the latter half of the work is highly artificial. Most commentators acknowledge that chapters 7-12 form a distinct section of the work (see my comments above). While the Aramaic “chiasm” (again not overly convincing because it ignores chapter one as a distinct literary unit within the court stories of one to six) does help to integrate the two parts of the book it does not, by any means, undo the more fundamental bifurcation. Structurally chapter seven belongs to the sequence of four Danielic dreams and visions (7-12) rather than the court stories of 1-6. Furthermore I find the suggested parallel between chapters 9a and 10 in Shea's structure dubious at best. Chapter 10 relates a terrifying vision of a celestial being which concerns "a great war" involving Persia and Greece (described in detail in chapter 11); Daniel 9a, on the other hand, is a covenantal prayer confessing Judah’s rebellion and pleading for divine intervention to restore her fortunes: how these two form a parallel chiastic couplet under the heading ‘trials of God’s people” is a complete mystery to me.

My conclusion, then, is that Shea is so desperate to make "The Messiah Dies alone" the structural centre and core theme of the book (to fit his Christological purposes) that he forces a completely alien structure on to chapters 8-12 which is not supported by textual evidence. In any case if the "Anointed One" put to death in 9:26 is a Jewish figure we are compelled to think of Onias III – identified in 11:22 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onias_III) - rather than Jesus. And the king who destroys the city, causes "the sacrifice and oblation to cease", and creates a "desolating abomination" can only be Antiochus based on the parallel descriptions in chapter 7:8,11,20-21,25; 8:9-14, 23-25; 11: 21-45. Unfortunately conservative Christians are so ready to see veiled references to Jesus here that they ignore the evidence.

If Antiochus IV was such a nobody, as suggested, I wonder why it is that Jews to this day celebrate the rededication of the temple, defiled by Antiochus, in the festival of Hanukkah (Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanukkah, see also John 10:22). This feast commemorates the liberation and rededication of the temple in 165 BCE after Antiochus had looted it, massacred observant Jews, outlawed the Jewish religion and erected a statue of Zeus in its courts in 167-8 BCE. This rededication coincided with the overthrow of Seleucid rule and the founding of an independent Jewish kingdom, the first since the Babylonian captivity, which was to last for the next 100 years. This hardly sounds like a minor blip in Jewish history to me.

Furthermore Daniel 11 does not one dimensionally describe a “powerful king” but rather accurately reflects Antiochus IV’s first highly successful campaign against Egypt as well as his second which was repelled due to Rome’s intervention (the “ships of Kittim” in v 30). This was the occasion of the “line in the sand” incident. There are also clear references in 11: 5-20 to key events and kings in the history of the Seleucid empire from Ptolemy I and Seleucus (v5), to the marriage between Antiochus II and Berenice – and her subsequent murder (v6), Ptolemy III’s successful invasion of Syria (vv7-8), the battle of Raphia (vv11-12), Antiochus III’s success in the Fifth Syrian War (vv 13-16), Cleopatra’s marriage to Ptolemy V (v17), Antiochus III’s defeat by the Romans at Thermopylae and subsequent death (vv18-19), Seleucus IV (v20), and, finally, Antiochus IV Epiphanes to whom the rest of the chapter is devoted. I defy any independent observer to read chapter 11 and compare it with historical events without coming to the conclusion that the bulk of the chapter is focused on Epiphanes and his attempt to wipe out the Jewish temple cultus. All seem to agree that the visions of Daniel are parallel and focus on the same crisis. The obvious implication is that chapter 11, which supplies the most detailed information on this crisis, clearly identifies the events of 168 to 165 BCE as the central concern of the book.

I think it would be fair to say that historical critical scholars pay little attention to conservative Christian interpreters who rely on "spiritual discernment" rather than logic and evidence to skew the natural and literal reading of texts like Daniel. Certainly an encyclopaedic entry should stick to the evidence rather than imposing later Christian interpretations, evident in Shea's thinking, onto this text. And to say that because the prophecies of Daniel end with the establishment of an eternal kingdom the historical schemes must cover all history up to the present day is just circular reasoning. The logical explanation, in view of the fact that all four visions of chapters 7-12 focus on the same crisis (an attack on the temple and its services historically located in chapter 11), is that the predictions of a subsequent everlasting kingdom were not fulfilled.

Consequently I recommend that Shea’s section on structure be moved or deleted. At the very least the section on structure should include some information on alternative views which canvass the various structural features of the book without resorting to dogmatic and illogical arguments.

--Sineaste 06:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The supposed correlation between 11 and Antiochus is exposed in the following book.

Arthur Ferch, 1988, “Daniel on Solid Ground.”Ch. 4, 56-65

Historical Analysis

What then are the historical resemblances between Daniel and the period of Antiochus? Are the similarities so striking that one should ignore the book's explicit claims and accept a second-century origin?

Basic to the Maccabean thesis is the presupposition that a rather reliable historical reconstruction of events between 167 and 164 B.C. is possible and that such a reconstruction coincides so closely with the data provided by Daniel that it could only have been written in the mid-second century. If this proposal is valid and the book arose within earshot of the events of the Antiochian persecution, one would expect a particularly detailed and accurate account of events during this period. Is this the case? In addition, if the putative second-century author was a Maccabean or had Maccabean leanings, as a sizable number of scholars suggest, one would further anticipate seeing some of the significant emphases, concerns, and perspectives of Maccabean literature reflected in Daniel. Can this be demonstrated?

A historical analysis reveals several serious problems with the Maccabean thesis.

First, the most important primary contemporary sources depicting historical events between 167 and 164 B.C. with considerable detail are disappointingly few. They are limited to 1 and 2 Maccabees and Polybius.

Second, several weighty disagreements between these sources about both details and the order of events during the period under discussion complicate matters even further. Events that still remain a matter of controversy among historians include the cause of the religious persecution of the Jews, the precise time of Jason's rebellion, the date of Antiochus' death, and the issue of whether Antiochus conducted one or two campaigns against Jerusalem.

Given the divergences in the presently available primary and contemporary sources, it is difficult to draw up a consistent, detailed, and accurate historical reconstruction for the period under consideration.5 The problem is compounded by several rather vague allusions in Daniel 11. All of which highlights the serious difficulty in establishing a satisfactory comparison between the book of Daniel and the mid-second century happenings.

Occasionally scholars will actually use the book of Daniel to round out their historical reconstruction of this period. A case in point is the matter of the two campaigns that Antiochus is supposed to have waged against Jerusalem. Neither book of Maccabees refers to two campaigns by the Greek despot. In view of this difficulty, it is interesting to note the dubious procedure adopted by the well-known Jewish scholar V. Tcherikover. Tcherikover reconstructs events of the period under discussion by considering Daniel 11 (which mentions a twofold contact between the king of the north and God's people) as an eyewitness account of two visits by Antiochus to Jerusalem.

But this process begs the question. Tcherikover assumes what scholars discussing the second-century origin of Daniel are still trying to prove, namely, that Daniel is an eyewitness report of the events under discussion. The validity of this type of circular reasoning is open to question because it is precisely the issue of the two campaigns by Antiochus against Jerusalem that is advanced as one of the major proofs for the second-century B.C. origin of the book of Daniel.

Striking resemblances between Daniel 11 and the account given in the books of Maccabees and Polybius include (1) the reference to the setting up of the "abomination of desolation" (Dan. 8:9-13; 9:27; 11:31; cf. 1 Macc. 1:54); (2) a twofold conflict of the king of the north with the king of the south (Dan. 11:25-29); and (3) the northern tyrant's withdrawal after an encounter with the ships of Kittim (Dan. 11:29, 30). Historians have compared these scriptural details with the profanation of the Jerusalem Temple by Antiochus, his two campaigns against Egypt, and the tyrant's expulsion from Egypt by the Roman consul Gaius Popilius Laenas.

Given this apparent correspondence of events, one can appreciate how people reading Daniel in the time of Antiochus could apply these verses to the situation of their own time. Antiochus left an indelible impression on the minds and lives of the Jews of his day. How could they forget the marches of the Greek army through their territory? Antiochus interfered with their religious observances and ideas. He defiled the Temple by erecting a pagan image on its altar. The hated Greek ruler had attracted traitors to the Jewish cause and persecuted mercilessly those who were unwilling to comply with his program.

Stress on similarities, however, could lead one to pass over the even larger number of dissimilarities and problems. Daniel 8:9-12 and 11:36-39 describe the little horn and the king of the north in terms that far surpass anything we presently know about the actions, character, and pretensions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes.

If our information from extrabiblical sources is correct (e.g., Livy's comment on the religious disposition of Antiochus), then we are left with notable discrepancies regarding the Greek's religious practices and the description in the Bible of the little horn and the king of the north. Consequently, commentators resort occasionally to interpretations dictated not so much by the book of Daniel as by the desire to have the biblical material conform with the information that we have about Antiochus (e.g., comments on Dan. 11:39).

Politically, the reign of Antiochus was far more modest than the descriptions of the little horn and the king of the north given in Daniel 7, 8, and 11. Antiochus inherited the ever lengthening shadow of Rome. When faced with the ultimatum presented by Popilius Laenas, Antiochus, who had formerly been a hostage in Rome, bowed to the superior might of Rome.

If Daniel 7-12 was written shortly after the episodes recorded, as historicocritical scholars contend, why do the biblical accounts reflect so little of the material we read in I and 2 Maccabees and Polybius?

Maccabees records a three-year period of temple profanation, but this is not matched by any of the time periods mentioned in Daniel.

If the author of Daniel was a Maccabean or someone sympathetic to the Maccabean cause, one would expect a basic philosophy common both to the books of Daniel and Maccabees. Yet the ethos of 1 and 2 Maccabees and Daniel is at odds. In Daniel there is no call to arms to defend the faith of Israel as there is in 1 Maccabees 2. Daniel is silent about the Maccabean revolt and its leaders. Whereas in the Maccabean literature the freedom fighters and their vicissitudes are of central importance, commentators see no more than a vague allusion to these Jewish soldiers in Daniel (11:34). The book of Daniel is silent about the exploits of the Maccabees and their exciting victories over the Syrian generals. Even if the author had been a pacifist, one would have expected a greater sympathy with the successes of his countrymen. It is hardly likely that such heroes as Mattathias and Judas Maccabeus would live remained unnamed.

The Maccabean letters are concerned with the Jewish opposition to this idolatrous king; whereas the book of Daniel focuses primarily on the activities of the little horn and the king of the north.

Proponents of the Maccabean thesis concede that Daniel 11:40-45 does not conform to what is known about the end of Antiochus. Given these discrepancies, commentators claim that the author of Daniel changed from the writing of history to a genuine but inaccurate attempt to prophesy. Such an explanation is a tour de force that would hardly survive elsewhere in Old Testament analysis. The majority view simply wants to have it both ways and therefore becomes incredible.

If the fulfillment of Daniel 11:1-39 was designed to inspire hope and to validate the fulfillment of future prophecies, then the alleged failure of the events described in verses 40-45 to materialize raises grave questions about the thrust of the total book. The problems would be largely resolved if we were to abandon the Maccabean thesis, recognize Daniel I I as a genuine prophecy, and seek a different interpretation of the chapter.

In light of these problems, the contention that Daniel (especially chapter 11) parallels events in Palestine between 167 and 164 B.C. so closely that it provides us with the origin of the book needs to be called into question. While the Maccabean thesis demonstrates how those who read Daniel at the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes could apply sections of this chapter to their own situation, the theory fails to prove that the book (or sections thereof) originated at that time.

Pseudonymity

The Maccabean thesis raises an additional problem. If the book of Daniel was not authored by the sixth century B.C. statesman/prophet who claims to have been the writer of at least portions of the book (e.g., Dan. 7:1, 2), then one has to assume pseudonymous authorship for the book. Yet this slender volume qualified for inclusion in the sacred canon in spite of this alleged pseudonymity. How could this be?

Some scholars suggest that the adoption of the name of an ancient well-known person (a practice that presumably went undetected) was intended to increase the acceptability and authority of the document. Such a practice would seem to border on deception. Other modem writers assure us that attribution of such ancient names to works composed at a later time was an accepted literary practice that deceived no one. Clearly these two functions are mutually exclusive and offensive to the logic and moral sensitivities of non-technical readers of the book of Daniel.

In the light of Joyce G. Baldwin's observation that during the whole of the Old Testament period "no example has so far come to light of a pseudepigraphon which was approved or cherished as an authoritative book," the idea of pseudonymity as applied to the book of Daniel is highly questionable.6 It robs this biblical book of its very impact.

Gordon Wenham remarks appropriately that "the idea that God declares His future purposes to His servants is at the heart of the book's theology. If, however, Daniel is a second-century work, one of its central themes is discredited, and it could be argued that Daniel ought to be relegated to the Apocrypha and not retain full canonical status as a part of OT Scripture.7 In any event, the burden of proof that Daniel is in any part pseudonymous still rests with those who make this claim.

Conclusion

Likewise, the argument that Daniel (particularly sections of the second half of the book) originated in the second century B.C. because it accurately reflects the Maccabean period is dubious. Contrary to popular opinion, the history of that period is not well known. The main sources disagree on several important issues, and Daniel does not fit this period as well as we have been led to believe.

Although the Maccabean thesis illustrates how people living during the days of the Syrian tyrant's reign could apply portions of the prophecies to their own day, it cannot bear the weight of the argument placed upon it. Much of the detail provided in this slender volume is far better explained when the visions are understood as genuine prophecies (vaticinia ante eventu). While one may not want to press for historical correspondences for every detail in a prophecy given centuries before the fulfillment of predicted events, one should be able to expect close parallels in an account that purportedly narrates immediate past event;.

In sum, the book of Daniel reflects the background, practices, and customs of the Babylonian and early Persian empires. The author's knowledge of contemporary history and customs, a knowledge lost in subsequent centuries, suggests that the writer lived at the time suggested by the book. Once we accept the validity of predictive prophecy (which is clearly an axiom of faith), there is no reason why the claims of the book of Daniel in regard to its exilic composition cannot be accepted.

The implicit information provided does not contradict the explicit testimony according to which Daniel was responsible for the messages that narrate events in his life and disclose divine forecasts that stretch from the sixth century B.C. to the end of time.

References

5 For a more detailed discussion, see my article "The Book of Daniel and the 'Maccabean Thesis,"' Andrews University Seminary Studies 2 1, No. 2 (1983) : 129-141.

6 Joyce G. Baldwin, "Is There Pseudonymity in the Old Testament?" Themelios 4, No. 1 (1978) : 8.

7 Gordon J. Wenham, "Daniel: The Basic Issues," Themelios 2, No. 2 (1977): 51. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Christian Skeptic (talk • contribs) 00:12, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Once again a Seventh Day Adventist author is being dragged out in a rather silly attempt to refute the clear historical progression of Daniel 11, a progression which is obvious to all commentators except those blinded by confessional bias.

Before I respond, however, I note with interest that no attempt has been made to counter my arguments about the inadequacy of Shea’s structural proposals. I reiterate my suggestion that the section on structure be removed or re-written.

At the outset it is worth considering that Seventh Day Adventist interest in Daniel is motivated by the fact that their basis for existence stems from an eccentric interpretation of Daniel 8:14 which states that the 2300 “days” represent 2300 years, ending in the year 1844. This date was when the Millerite movement in North America believed Jesus would return to earth, applying the “year for a day principle”. When Jesus failed to appear Adventists, refusing to admit that the date was wrong, developed a rather elaborate scheme designed to prove that in 1844 Jesus entered the holy of holies in a “heavenly temple” to begin “cleansing the sanctuary”. This was interpreted to mean an “investigative judgment” of the living and the dead, an examination of the lives of everyone who has ever lived, after which Jesus would return to earth to take the righteous to heaven and destroy the wicked. Adventists understand themselves as the holy “remnant” who alone keep God’s law (particularly the seventh day Sabbath), raised up in the “last days” (i.e. 1844) to prepare the world through active evangelism for the end of the investigative judgement and the second coming of Christ. So to admit that Daniel focuses on a second century BCE Judean crisis, rather than spanning the whole of history up to the establishment of their church and the end of the world, is anathema to any Adventist. Arthur Ferch was generally a careful and capable scholar but could, nonetheless, be relied upon to come up with doctrinally orthodox results in his research. He would very quickly have lost his employment with the church if he had come up with any sort of alternative views on Daniel. In the context of Daniel B, of course, the “2300 evening mornings” is an obvious reference to the daily evening and morning sacrifices which were to be disrupted due to a defiling attack on the temple by the tyrant identified in chapters 7- 9 and particularly chapter 11. The immediate context of 8.11-13 and parallel references in 7.25, 9.27 and 11.31 make this abundantly clear. Ferch and other Seventh Day Adventist authors are the only ones to adhere to their rather strange and fanciful interpretation which was originally formulated using naïve “proof text” methods in the mid 1800s. It is also worth observing that Ferch’s published opinions on Daniel have done nothing to sway scholarly consensus on the interpretation of Daniel 11 or the date of the book.

Ferch’s argument depends largely on setting up two “straw men”:

1. Unless a watertight history of Antiochus IV and his interventions in Jerusalem can be constructed the “maccabean thesis” is disproved. 2. If thematic similarities between I and II Maccabees and Daniel cannot be established the second century origin of Daniel looses credibility.

The second point is mischievous to say the least. The most widely held understanding of Daniel’s relationship to the books of Maccabees and their guerilla fighter heroes is that Daniel represents a completely different school of thought to the authors of these works. Daniel nowhere advocates taking up arms against the wicked king of chapters 7-12 but rather, in both the court tales and the visions, suggests that passive resistance and dependence upon God should be the appropriate response of righteous Jews. It is the Hasidim and not the Maccabees who are the leaders and heroes of Daniel B and, contrary to Ferch, this is the accepted scholarly view. Saying that Daniel and Maccabees should display common themes is a little like saying that the gospels should share a “basic philosophy” with the aims and methods of the zealots and sicarii in first century Judaism. In other words this argument is nonsensical.

Ferch’s second point has more merit, in view of some historical discrepancies between first and second Maccabees. For a useful discussion of one of these issues see http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/symposiums/4th/papers/Schwartz99.html. But here Ferch grossly exaggerates the evidence. To suggest that there is no sort of reliable historical reconstruction of this period against which to measure the historicity of Daniel 11 is, to use a Christian analogy again, like saying that Jesus never existed because of discrepancies and contradictions between nativity and passion/resurrection stories in the gospels. Whatever the exact date of Antiocus’ death or Jason’s rebellion, whether the persecution was instigated by Hellenistic Jews or by a wider religio-cultural program designed to unify the Seleucid empire, regardless of whether there were one or two attacks against Jerusalem, the fact is that the crisis described in both primary sources and valid secondary sources like Josephus agrees perfectly with similar descriptions in Daniel B. That is: the temple would be defiled, the daily sacrifice abolished, an “abomination” would be set up in the temple, and faithful Jews would be persecuted and killed.

Perhaps if we isolated the relevant parts of chapter eleven these descriptions could be roughly applied to other crises in Jewish history. Taken in the context of chapter eleven, though, the evidence is incontrovertible. We start with a description of a powerful Greek king – Alexander - whose kingdom is divided into four parts at his death. Following verses describe a succession of conflicts between kings of “north” and “south” – the Ptolemies and Seleucids. Events described match independent historical records of this period. Finally one of the Seleucid kings, whose rise to power and military campaigns match those of Antiochus IV, attacks Judaism and disrupts the temple cultus. Again I would suggest that fundamentalists, and Ferch fits this category to the extent that he ignores the obvious progression of events, have their heads buried in the proverbial sand if they ignore the textual and historical evidence here. The question that has to be asked is what other attack on the second temple involved the suspension of the cult by a foreign king for a significant but LIMITED period? Neither Ptolemy’s incursion in 63BCE nor the final destruction of the temple in 70CE match this description. Ferch and others would have us believe that the final verses of chapter eleven, despite the fact that they clearly identity an individual wicked king and a specific historical calamity, somehow leap forward thousands of years to some post-1844 pre-advent eschatological crisis in which Seventh Day Adventists become the heroes. This is both absurd and unscholarly and typifies the Christian fundamentalist approach to scripture which is to bolster poorly founded denominational traditions with scholarly arguments that have a veneer of respectability but major on minors. --Sineaste (talk) 01:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

history lesson

After accusing Ferch of creating a srawman, you stoop to the same thing in your flawed presentation of the SDA position on the 2300 day prophecy.

William Miller and the thousands of his followers proposed two things: 1) That the 'cleansing of the sanctuary' meant the Second Coming of the Lord, and 2) That the 2300 day prophecy began in 457 BC (with the 70 week prophecy) and would end in 1844. After 10/22/1844 came and went and Jesus did not return, the disappointed Millerites faced the following options: A) Reject Bible prophecy and Christianity altogether (many did). B) Ignore Bible Prophecy but still kept faith in the Bible and Jesus (many did). C) Apply all kinds of other lengths of time for the 'days'(some did). D) Keep setting new dates based on different ideas about the starting times or other things (a few did, out of which came the Jehovah Witnesses). E) A few, perhaps several dozen who eventually became the SDAs, felt that the assumptions and calculations of the 2300 days was Biblically sound. They reexamined the texts again and realized that if the dates were correct, then they had likely been wrong about the event that was supposed to have happen. NO ONE at the time had really studied to see what the Bible meant by 'Cleansing of the Sanctuary.' It was just ASSUMED by Miller and nearly all theologians of the day to mean the Second Coming of the Lord.

The idea that 'Cleansing of the Sanctuary' may find meaning in the symbolic services of the ancient tabernacle caused a synergistic synthesis of an array of Biblical teachings that had not been fully appreciated before. It was not stubborn resistance to appease their egos that caused them to keep hold onto the dates founded by the Millerites, but the much broader theology that grew out of learning what the Bible actually meant by "cleansing of the Sanctuary" rather than what men thought it meant. Christian Skeptic (talk) 06:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This is called retrofitting.  ???? by some unknown person

Retrofiting refers to the addition of new technology or features to older systems. Even if you try to apply it figuratively, it does not describe what actually happened. They did not try to apply some newly invented interpretation to the Bible, but rather stepped back and took a second, longer look at what the Bible actually had to say and discovered that what many (including themselves) had thought the texts meant had been forced onto the texts (eisegesis) rather than letting the texts read for themselves (exegesis). As is displayed here, critics, instead of bothering searching things out and thinking for themselves, are content to mindless regurgitate the same blind mantra over and over again. After all, the majority must be right! Right? Surely Jesus didn't mean it when he said: "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." No one really believes that .... How foolish.... Christian Skeptic (talk) 02:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

They misinterpreted it to suit their own purposes. As I said, it's called retrofitting, in spite of your preachy, yet futile, attempt to refute my point. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.0.226 (talk) 12:13, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Let's not forget that Daniel is first and foremost a Jewish book. I imagine that Jewish readers would, on the whole, be somewhat offended that Daniel's depiction of a horrific period in their history is being spiritualised into some sort of heavenly bookkeeping exercise which only Seventh Day Adventist's interpret correctly. I also have to say that SDA assumptions about the 2300 "days" are NOT biblically sound and, in fact, make nonsense of the literal meaning of the text ie that the Temple in Jerusalem would be defiled by a Seleucid king, an "abomination" would be set up in it's courts, and the daily temple sacrifices abolished for a period of around three years. --Sineaste (talk) 04:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, Jewish people of that era may have thought that Antiochius was a fulfillment of the prophecies, but that doesn't mean they were correct. All the books of the Bible are for all who believe in God from all all ages. Nothing is singled out for some select minority group. Jesus didn't come to save just the blood line of Abraham and Israel. His free gift of eternal life is for all mankind--every one of every age. Christian Skeptic (talk) 07:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Preaching has no place here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.63.96.108 (talk) 20:39, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll remember that, if I ever feel tempted to preach. Those are just the facts. Christian Skeptic (talk) 00:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Preaching is exactly what you are doing, and it's quite tedious and irrelevant here. And your so-called "facts" are just opinions, nothing more.

Excellent points, Sineaste. As you have indicated, Daniel was a Jewish "apocalypse," not a Christian one, and it has been reinterpreted (and misinterpreted) by Christian sects such as the SDA in order to further their own agendas.  ????another anonymous post.

'Jewish "apocalypse"' is an unsupported OR assertion. 'reinterpreted (and misinterpreted)' is another unsupported, personal opinion assertion without any facts to support it. There is not a Jewish part nor a Christian part of the Bible. It is one indivisible whole woven together by the same Holy Spirit who inspired it all. Christian Skeptic (talk) 02:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that you study the standard critical commentaries in order to understand the error in your position. D.S. Russell, for example, quite clearly identifies it as a Jewish apocalypse. Also, the Old Testament is the Jewish part of the Bible. The New Testament is the Christian part. Finally, this is supposed to be an objective article, not a platform for the preaching of your personal religious beliefs. I suggest that you take that to some religious forum, somewhere else.

Sectarian apologetics ought to have no place in this article. If we want a lengthy discussion of Seventh Day Adventist views of Daniel, we should have a separate article on the subject. This article should deal with the scholarly consensus. john k (talk) 05:55, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

A "scholarly consensus" is very sectarian, i.e. anti-deistic. The "scholarly" approach is that there is no such thing as real prophecy because there is no such thing as God. Therefore, Daniel cannot be a prophecy of the future, but history written in a "prophetic" way. This scholarly approach is sectarian by nature. Any group who hold common beliefs in about anything is a sect. And anti-deist believe together that there is no God. There is no such thing as non-sectarian when it comes to the Bible. Christian Skeptic (talk) 07:31, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Anti-theistic, I imagine you mean. But that's absurd. A huge percentage of scholars of religion are believers. They aren't Biblical inerrantists, but that's not the same thing. I am so damned sick of this argument. john k (talk) 16:30, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Any notable interpretation of these texts should be presented in an unendorsing and concise fashion, whether one agrees or not. Str1977 ^(talk) 09:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

That was an excellent refutation of Ferch's flawed arguments, Sineaste. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.63.96.108 (talk) 20:36, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

Refutation! It was only a series of unsupported, baseless assertions. Christian Skeptic (talk) 02:00, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, as usual! It is your baseless assertion that is unsupported.

Update

I have just read the original article by William Shea used to justify the “double chiasm” diagram found in the Literary Structure section of the main article. While nearly all recent commentaries are aware of Lenglet’s original identification of chiastic structure in chapters 2-7 none that I have seen accept or even cite Shea’s position on chapters 8-12. This is hardly surprising since it is found in what is essentially an in-house Seventh Day Adventist publication designed to shore up traditional SDA understandings of biblical prophecy.

Having read the article I am even less surprised that no commentary mentions Shea’s structuring of Daniel 8-12 as it forms a very minor subsection (just over three pages of which nearly a full page is occupied by a diagram) of a larger 33 page article on “The Prophecy of Daniel 9:24-27”. Expecting detailed supporting arguments outlining lexical repetitions and thematic parallels I was very disappointed with the bare bones approach of this section which finally amounts to a mere page and a third of supporting argument. (It should be noted that there is an independent section on the structure of verses 24-27 but this limits itself to the verses in question.)

The underlying thrust of the argument is to support the thesis that in 9.24-27 “the literary structure of the second half of the book concentrates upon the Messiah and his death”. Shea goes on to suggest in rather enthusiastic fashion that “Towering over the wrecks of time, raised up between heaven and earth, the Messiah is found here, dying alone and rejected but providing atonement and everlasting righteousness in that solitary death. This is the Mount Everest, the literary summit of the book, and here we meet Jesus Christ as the suffering and dying Messiah.” When it comes to justifying his structure of 8-12, however, there is very little evidence provided to support Shea’s grand assertions and we end up with a classic example of a scholar falling in love with his subject and consequently exaggerating its importance far beyond the bounds of objective analysis.

When we examine the argument in detail we encounter the following problems:

1. While all commentators agree that the final half of the book is made up of 4 distinct visionary experiences recounted in the first person (chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10-12) Shea’s structure requires that we break up the self contained literary unit of 10-12 into two parts and that of chapter 9 into four!

2. Shea’s attempt to characterize chapter ten as a “trial” of God’s people is ludicrous to say the least. He reasons that it corresponds to the tales of the three young men in the furnace and Daniel in the lions den, and within chapters 8-12 that it is the counterpart to the confessional prayer of 9A. He calls chapter ten “Mourning for the Temple” in order to make it conform to the themes of 9A but only comes up with the flimsiest of arguments to support this. Shea asserts that just as chapter 3 has to do with Daniel’s friends so chapter 10 refers to Daniel and “his friends” i.e. those who were with him on the bank of the canal. This conveniently ignores the fact that in the former chapter they are central characters while they are completely peripheral in chapter 10. His second argument is that Daniel must have been mourning and fasting (10.2-3) for the temple, even though this is not explicitly stated, and so these two introductory verses are made to correspond to the whole prayer of 9.1-17. In other words Shea has fixated on the common introductory element of fasting and tried to make it thematic for the whole of chapter ten. The actual content of chapter ten is a preliminary vision of supernatural beings in which Daniel is introduced to the narrator of chapters 11-12. It has nothing to do with individual trials at the hands of foreign kings, and certainly cannot be accurately described as “Mourning for the Temple” based on information from the text.

3. Just as Shea tries to make chapter ten parallel the first part of chapter 9 by limiting his focus to isolated introductory verses, he makes an even more preposterous leap by trying to make two verses in chapter nine correspond to two entire chapters in the first half of the book (chapters 4 and 5). This breaks with all accepted notions of literary structure and chiastic parallelism and is clear proof that Shea is clutching at exegetical straws in order to substantiate his misguided “messianocentric” thesis. Shea gratuitously acknowledges that ‘the second half of the book does not provide full narratives of a similar nature’ and bases his argument on the fact that chapters 4 and 5 describe “prophecies” given to Babylonian kings while 9.25 and 27 describe the “prophetic” actions of foreign rulers. Aside from the fact that a number of commentators believe that the “word” of v 25 refers to the “word” that goes out in v23 or the prophetic word of Jeremiah’s 70 year prophecy, the underlying assumption that the structural counterparts of two complete court tales are individual verses in chapter nine is ridiculous in the extreme.

In conclusion the location of Shea’s original article has only confirmed my conviction that his view represents a “tiny minority” position that should never have been included in the main Daniel article. What we end up with is Isogesis – reading a predetermined Christian Messianic interpretation back into the text, instead of starting with the text itself, and using this to justify a highly unconvincing structural argument. It is supported by the flimsiest of evidence and, despite other more worthy contributions to Old Testament research, is typical of his lower quality work which is marked by poor scholarly judgment and sudden, illogical leaps of reasoning. (See comments on Darius the Mede on this page). I am very curious, incidentally, to know whether he continues to support this position in his recent (2005) commentary on Daniel. Finally, while a balanced understanding of literary structure remains a valuable interpretative tool, I hope that the days of “discovering” chiasms anywhere and everywhere to support otherwise tenuous exegetical arguments are now long gone. --Sineaste (talk) 05:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

In Chapter 3, 3 of God's people are put through a test. In Chapter 6 one of God's people is put through a test. In Chapter 9:1-19, Daniel prays about God's people being in captivity for 70 years. In Chapter 10:1-11:1 An Angel tells Daniel that he has come to explain "what will happen to your people in the future" and tell you "what is written in the Book of Truth." This section is again about happenings to Daniel's people who are also God's people. So all four sections are related because they deal with God's people and the things that happen to them. It's just that simple.

In Chapter 4 there is a prophecy about what will happen to a king. In Chapter 5 there is a prophecy about what will happen to a king. In 9:25 there is a prophecy about a king who will cause Jerusalem to be built. In 9:27 there is a prophecy about a king who will destroy Jerusalem. The first two occurred in the lifetime of Daniel, so it is expected that the stories of the prophecies are several paragraphs long. The prophecies in 25 and 27 were yet future to Daniel, so nothing more than the prophecies are recorded.

I haven't seen anything that makes you an expert on things Chiasmic. I find your arguments much less than convincing. Shea and the rest of the authors of the book that Shea's article is in make most commentators appear foolish. Allenroyboy (talk) 23:48, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

While the parallels between chapters 3 and 6 are obvious the reason that other commentators do not identify similar parallels between these two chapters and 9A/10 is that they are not obvious. The prayer of chapter nine is primarily a confession of collective sin and a request for the restoration of Jerusalem (thus verse 20 summarises: while I was confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel and making my request [for Jerusalem]) and is consequently quite different in both genre and theme to the earlier chapters. We should also note that the main characters in the earlier chapters suffer because of their faithfulness whereas the desolation of Jerusalem in chapter nine results from Israel's disobedience. So while there is a loose correspondence between the misfortunes of Judah and Jerusalem in the prayer 9A and the individual trials of the earlier court tales there is not enough to justify a strong structural parallel.

The suggestion, moreover, that "being in captivity for 70 years" is a direct parallel to 3 and 6 can apply to any of the court tales because they are all set during the Babylonian and early Persian captivity. If we focus on the trials and suffering of "god's people" in 3 and 6 a much stronger case could be made for parallels with chapter 8 or 9B or the latter parts of chapter 11 where the "holy people" are destroyed and trampled underfoot and the wise will "fall by the sword or be burned or captured or plundered". Finally the suggestion that all four sections "deal with God's people and the things that happen to them" could just as well be applied to chapter 1, any of the last chapters of the book, or almost any book in the "old testament"! In other words it's far too broad to justify your argument.

When we come to chapter ten the TNIV provides the subheading: Daniel's Vision of a Man. This is quite appropriate to the subject matter. To suggest with Shea, however, that the subject heading should be "Trial: Mourning for Temple" is ludicrous. It is a clear example of Shea reading his preconceived structure into the text to try to make it "fit" the unrelated themes of earlier chapters. Yes it mentions "what will happen to your people" but we are not given any detail of this until chapters 11 and 12. The aspect of the story that involves Daniel standing beside a river, being terrified, falling prostrate before an angelic presence, and then being raised provides a much closer parallel with Chapter 8B where essentially the same events occur.

You suggest that chapters four and five contain "prophecies" about "what will happen to" kings. If we look elsewhere in Daniel for prophecies about "what will happen to" kings the book is literally littered with them - why single out 9.25-27? As I suggested above we are not specifically told in 9.25 that "a king" will cause Jerusalem to be rebuilt - only that a "word goes out" which contextually seems to indicate a divine rather than a human decree. Ultimately, of course, this is besides the point because of the absurdity of suggesting that two individual verses which occur at the structural (though not thematic) periphery of chapter 9 can somehow form the matching complements to two complete and self contained court stories from Daniel A. This is a huge flaw in Shea's argument. Modern commentaries on biblical books frequently examine literary structure on both micro (small individual groups of verses) and macro (chapters or larger literary units) levels but I have yet to see another example of an exegete balancing an individual verse against a whole chapter in such illogical fashion.

Shea could have made a much stronger case for a concentric structure of the three larger literary units of chapter 8, 9 and 10-12 based on parallels between the succession of kingdoms in chapter 8 and a similar but more detailed historical overview in chapter 11. Chapter nine, which is relatively unique in not presenting the same kind of "kingdom prophecy", would then be the structural "meat in the sandwich". This would involve, however, making the chiasm of chapters 2-7 override the more fundamental literary division between court tales (Chs 1-6) and visions (7-12). It would also ignore the more strongly marked AABB structure of 8-12 in which two visions involving a succession of beast-kingdoms culminating in the activities of a "little horn" give way to more literal angelic explanations which examine the crisis provoked by the wicked king in more detail and without resort to the dramatic imagery of 7 - 8. This structure is reinforced by the dating of the visions - chapters 7 and 8 are set in the reign of Belshazzar while 9 and 10-12 are set in the Persian period.

None of these observations, of course, require a great deal of expertise in ancient Hebrew or Aramaic literary conventions. They are simply commonsense remarks based on textual data which is ultimately self-evident. What I can say with confidence, though, is that Shea's proposed structuring of chapters 8-12 is not self-evident and to the best of my knowledge has not been subject to genuine peer-review or acknowledged in any recognised commentary. --Sineaste (talk) 03:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I have just checked Shea's latest commentary on Daniel - Daniel, A Reader's Guide - and discovered that he seems to have completely abandoned his earlier ideas about the larger structure of the book. While there is more than one reference to the concentric structure of chapters 2-7 - originally identified by Lenglet - I could find no mention of a double chiasm or of chapter nine being the structural centre of the book. If the original author has abandoned this view I fail to see why the Wikipedia article should continue to highlight and promote it. --Sineaste (talk) 03:52, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

If you would do more that just superficial reading (try reading the preface) you would find that Shea has not abandoned that position. Here is what Shea says:

"... My work with the Biblical Research Institute of the General Conference required me to give more detailed attention to the prophetic portions of Daniel. This study resulted in an unpublished manuscript, "Daniel and the Judgment." Eventually BRI published certain chapters from this manuscript as volume one of the Daniel and Revelation Committee Series. ....

"I have chosen to deal with the text of Daniel in a way that does not strictly follow the original order as given in the book itself. For example, in examining chapter 7, 8 and 9, I have reversed the order--taking up chapter 9 first, then chapter 8, followed by chapter 7. I have done so because I believe the text becomes more meaningful if viewed in this order. I have also followed this "reverse' order based on insights that have come from studying the literary structure of various Old Testament texts--especially the Psalms. In the various chapters that cover these prophecies, I have provided further justification for altering the order of the chapters for the purpose of studying them.

"The history present in the earlier portions of Daniel's book flows quite naturally in to the prophetic sections. There is a sense in which prophecy is merely history written from the divine viewpoint before it happens. (Preface)

Shea simply does not republish what he already had published in the earlier work since it was unnecessary. And in this new book he studies "in reverse order" some chapters because of the common literary structure of Old Testament texts--especially the Psalms, which are famous for their poetic chiasms.

From page 172: "This picture of the Messiah as sacrifice is a prelude and vital introduction to the prophecies of Daniel 8 and 7 that flow in reverse order from Chapter 9. Daniel 9 forms a presupposition for the later events contained in these prophecies."

This shows that Shea still holds that The Messiah part of Chapter 9 as the focus of Daniel. I recommend reading the book from cover to cover. Christian Skeptic (talk) 23:23, 14 October 2008 (UTC)

I repeat, there is no mention of a double chiasm to describe the structure of the book and there is no mention of chapter nine being the structural centre of the book. Shea has every opportunity to do this when he discusses Lenglet's identification of the concentric structure of chapters 2 to 7 and also in his detailed commentary on chapter 9 - but he is strangely silent.

Firstly, to say that chapter 9 introduces chapters 7-8 is not the same thing as saying that it is the structural centre of the book. Secondly the reason Shea takes the somewhat eccentric route of rearranging chapters 7-9 in his commentary is based on his peculiarly Adventist understanding of the chronological flow of the three chapters ie chapter nine covers history up to the time of christ, chapter eight extends to the year 1844, and chapter seven extends to the second coming of christ. That's why he says chapter 9 presupposes the later events of 7-8. In any case the treatment of chapters 7-9 as a distinct literary unit clearly conflicts with his earlier position in which chapter seven is part of the first chiasm - as per your diagram. None of the quotations you make actually suggest that Shea still holds to his former position - in fact the complete absence of any mention of it suggests that it has been quietly abandoned. --Sineaste (talk) 02:09, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Expositor's Bible Commentary

Because of my using the electronic version, I don't know the exact page and volume of the printed version, but I will have it tommorow.--Vassilis78 09:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Parallel Prophecies

The prophecies of Daniel 2, 7, 8, and 11-12 have long been recognized as parallel prophecies that cover over and again the same periods of time in history. The following table shows how all 4 prophecies are parallel as has been interpreted by Bible scholars of all ages.

Some wax poetic about Antiochus fulfilling Chp 11. That's pales to insignificance when compared to how all 4 prophecies dovetail together.

Daniel 2	Daniel 7	Daniel 8	Daniel 11-12	Std. Interpretation
Head--Gold	Lion with wings	---	---	Babylon
2 Arms and Chest--Silver	Bear w/one side more powerful than other. 3 ribs in mouth	2 horned Ram [Called Media/Persia]	Persian Kings [vs 2]	Media/Persia
Belly and thighs--Bronze	Leapord with 4 head & wings	Single horn Goat: 4 horns come up [Called Greece]	Greek Kings of N & S [vs 3-19]	Greece
2 Legs--Iron	Horrible beast W/10 horns & Little horn	Blasphemous Horn	King of North [vs 20-39]	Pagan & Papal Rome
2 Feet--Iron & Clay mix	Judgment court set up	2300 Days/Cleansing of Sanctuary	The Time of the End Northern King [vs 40-45]	SuperPower & Sanctuary Judgement
Rock	Kingdom of God	Cleansing of Sanctuary	Kingdom of God [vs 12:1-4]	God's Kingdom

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Christian Skeptic (talk • contribs)

Pales to insignificance? Please. john k (talk) 08:27, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

What is "Std. Interpretation" supposed to mean? Standard? Certainly, the wording given above is not standard - standard are merely the linking of the various beasts with Babylon, Persia, Macedon and Rome and of course the ending in God's Kingdom.

However, Daniel 8 and Daniel 11 are more commonly linked to Macedon - there is no indication of any preceding Empire. The Northern Kingdom vs. Southern Kingdom thing closely covers the history of the Seleucides vs. the Ptolemaeans (and is actually the basis for placing the latter half of the book around 160 BC). Str1977 ^(talk) 09:24, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

By standard interpretation I mean the typical interpretation that has been held by most Bible Scholars in the last 2000 years. See. Macedon (or whatever) is indeed a part of all 4 prophecies, but only a part. All 4 prophecies cover the history of the earth from the day of Daniel, 5th Century BC, to beyond the present to God's kingdom. Christian Skeptic (talk) 00:46, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no such thing as a "standard" or "typical" interpretation, that is asserting a false "consensus" on something that is in fact highly controversial, about which there has never been any consensus at any time ever, and taking one "favored" interpretation and assigning it "undue weight". The best we can do is mention all those various interpretations by significant scholars that can be cited, exactly as NPOV and other policy states. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:12, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I would say that the "standard" interpretation of scholars is pretty clearly that the prophecies culminate about the period of Antiochus IV. So far as I can tell, religious scholars in mainline protestant, Catholic, and non-Orthodox Jewish traditions also generally agree on this point. Conservative religious traditions of various sorts, and their apologists, will hold various different alternative beliefs about what the prophecy means. john k (talk) 18:44, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

That is absolutely wrong. First of all, Catholic scholars, Protestant scholars, Orthodox scholars, Jewish scholars etc. are still scholars. Being faithless has never before been a prerequisite for scholarship; that is a very modern attitude that has only reared its head in recent times, although it was present in the Soviet Union. Secondly, because Christ clearly alluded to Daniel according to the Gospel, and indicated that the prophesies would be unfulfilled until the last days immediately before the Resurrection of the Dead (which also happens to be waht the text of Daniel itself indicates several times) there are people from every Church who read this and consider what it means. I don't know about those "churches" that openly deny the Bible, but there is a widespread feeling in every Church that actually believes the Bible contains God's Word, that he who is wise will study the prophecies of Daniel, while he who is foolish will discount them, and will even go to great lengths to attempt to prevent them from being discussed at all. We've been through all this before, but there can be no such thing as a "consensus" POV that Wikipedia must endorse, on something this controversial, and anyone who pretends there is, is simply trying to discount all the POVs that they don't agree with, when policy is quite clear that ALL significant POV's that can be sourced have to be presented. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 19:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Of course Catholic, Jewish, Protestants can also be scholars - my apologies for suggesting otherwise. My point in these articles has always been to note the significant level of agreement and consensus between secular and mainstream religious scholars. My whole point, in fact, has been to try to deny that there is a dichotomy between "religious" and "secular" scholars on these subjects - in fact, most secular and religious scholars agree about this stuff. On the other hand, fundamentalists who assume that the Bible is inerrant cannot, however, be scholars of the Bible (they can certainly be scholars of other things.) What they are doing is simply not the same thing as what scholars do. As to all significant POVs - sure, but all significant POVs should be represented for what they are. The view which is the consensus of the modern academy should be presented as such. Views which are held by fundamentalist apologists should be presented as such. BTW, I love the idea that anyone who thinks that Daniel is about Antiochus IV doesn't "believe the Bible contains God's word." As I understand it, even many relatively conservative Christians accept that much of Daniel 11 is about Antiochus. C.f., for instance, this guy. Hell, even St. Jerome accepts that the stuff in Daniel 11 applies both to Antiochus and to Antichrist, as Antiochus is a type for Antichrist. Is St. Jerome also a denier of the Bible containing God's word? john k (talk) 20:13, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

No, since Jerome supports the view that it also applies to a future Antichrist, he is not denying the Bible, and he is but one source for this ancient view. It sickens me to see wikipedia which is supposed to be "neutral", used as a platform for attacking certain beliefs and faiths that are still widely held today, by dismissing all those who have written them down as "fundamentalist apologists". In fact, deciding which widely held faiths and beliefs to attack like that, doesn't seem very "neutral" at all. If it's truly going to be neutral, then call it neutral, but if it's going to be used to attack, and deliberately attempt to weaken people's faiths and beliefs, don't call it "neutral", call it for what it is. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 22:11, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The Messiah

All Bible translators of every version of the Bible have used "THE Annointed" or "THE Messiah" in this text. Yes, EVERYONE knows, there is no definite article in the original text. However, since ALL Bible translators from over several centuries have translated this as 'THE Messiah' or 'THE Annointed' they must have had good reason to do so. Those who claim "mistranslation" are fringe and without merit. And further, this change was made without any references to support it and must be considered OR. Christian Skeptic (talk) 04:35, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

There is no good reason for mistranslating the text as "the Messiah." This mistranslation is just evidence of Christian bias, in the reinterpretation (and misinterpretation) of a Jewish text. Furthermore, this article is supposed to be objective, not a platform for the preaching of Christianity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.160.0.226 (talk) 11:55, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

It is only in your opinion that there is "no good reason". You are putting your puny opinion against ALL Hebrew scholars who have ever translated the Bible or the Torah not only into English but all other languages. You are the one wanting to make this article a platform for your personal beliefs. You need reliable sources to support your position. Get those and you can add a statement to that effect. Christian Skeptic (talk) 04:17, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Once again I note that "Christian Sceptic" is wildly overstating his/her case by stating that all bible translators unequivocally use the article here (I assume he/she is referring to Daniel 9:25-26 as this is not specified). A footnote in the New International Version (http://www.ibs.org/niv/passagesearch.php?niv=yes&passage_request=Daniel%209) clearly lists "an anointed one" as a valid optional translation. It is also wrong to assume that "Anointed One" is simply equivalent to "Messiah" with all of the Christian and eschatalogical overtones that the latter word now possesses. NIV very deliberately chooses the more inclusive term which can also be used to refer to High Priests. As all scholars of second century BCE Jewish history are aware a prominent high priest, Onias III, was assassinated by Hellenizing rivals during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. The wikipedia article on Onias III states that: The passage in Daniel ix. 26, "shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself," is generally referred to the murder of Onias. --Sineaste (talk) 05:49, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Messy Darius the Mede section

The current section on Darius the Mede is a complete mess with undue weight being given to views which the sources mentioned in the section in fact address and discredit. I propose the following replacement:

Daniel describes a certain Darius the Mede as taking control of Babylon after Belshazzar is deposed and ruling over Babylon in chapters 6 and 9. Daniel reports that Darius was 'about 62 years old' when he was 'made king over Babylon.' Josephus corroborates the account in Daniel but the name 'Darius the Mede' is not found outside these sources thus raising the question of his identity. The Nabonidus chronicle does however record that a Mede named Gubaru took control of Babylon and his birth is dated 62 years before, thus John Whitcomb in his 1959 book, Darius the Mede concludes that that Darius the Mede is Gubaru, Darius being a throne name. The identification had already been proposed in 1883 by Babelon. Additionally Josephus makes Darius the Mede the son of Astyages, and uncle of Cyrus. Several scholars (including Calvin, Ussher and John Gill) as well as in more recent times (eg. Keil and Delitzsch Vol.6, p.546-548) note that Xenophon in his Cyropaedia 1.4,7, iii.3, 20, viii.5, 19 makes mention of the same historical individual referring to him as Cyaxares, the name of Median royal family.

Alternative suggestions see Darius as another name for either Cyrus or Astyages (e.g. Syncellus) although such views do not accord with Josephus.

The current paragraph gives undue weight to discussion of Darius as Cyrus or Astyages when such views are either based on ignorance of Josephus' and the Nabonidus chronicle etc or blatantly disregard them. There is also little point to mentioning the overturned 19th century view that Darius the Mede isn't historical when its been observed for over 100 years already he matches individuals mentioned by both Babylonian and Greek sources ie. Gubaru and Cyrus' uncle of the house of Cyaxares. Kuratowski's Ghost (talk) 01:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

...According to the apologists, yes. Many disagree. Your proposed change gives undue weight to the views of those who want to force-fit "Darius the Mede" into history by renaming someone who wasn't called "Darius". There is no particular reason to do so, given Daniel's somewhat casual attitude towards history (e.g. erasing Nabonidus and making the more famous Nebuchadrezzar the father of Belshazzar, among other things). Yet the previous version already covered this view: what you're proposing is implicit endorsement of that view and explicit deletion of other views. In general, an apologetic fix to a problem should not be taken as the correct answer to that problem: in particular, it does not justify deletion of other views and commentary regarding that problem. --Robert Stevens (talk) 11:10, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Correct me if I am wrong but Darius is a name used only by a ruler and would not be his normal first name prior to becoming a ruler. The info on Darius the Mede, not only from Daniel but from Josephus, matches Gubaru, if it quacks like a duck its a duck. Daniel does not erase Nabonidus, it has no reason to mention him and it is well known that the description of Nebuchadnezzar as father can be understood as and is in all likelyhood intended to be understood as forefather, as the Jews certainly knew of Nabonidis and had a text called the Prayer of Nabonidus. (Open a Jewish prayer book for example and you will find that every instance of the term father means forefather not literal father.) Kuratowski's Ghost (talk) 12:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

But Josephus was merely echoing Daniel, and Darius wasn't a "ruler's name" (that's apologetics again). It was just a name. Maybe it later gained "royal" status after Darius the Great (just as "Caesar" did after Julius), but that was later. Darius the Great himself does not appear to have had another name prior to becoming a ruler. And, yes, Nebuchadrezzar is consistently portrayed in Daniel as Belshazzar's father and immediate predecessor (no king between Nebuchadrezzar and Belshazzar is mentioned), and apparently the illness of Nabonidus was exaggerated and transferred to Nebuchadrezzar. Making assumptions based on a presumption of Daniel's historical accuracy is pointless. --Robert Stevens (talk) 12:46, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Josephus does not simply echo Daniel as he makes statements about Darius the Mede that are not sourced from Daniel, in other words he had an independent source. No where in Daniel does it say Nebuchadnezzar immediately preceded him and the simple fact is that "father" more often than not means forefather in Hebrew texts. Saying that it doesn't based on the presumption that Daniel being part of the Bible must be inaccurate is pointless. You call attempts to understand the sources "apologetics", but your view which denies any sensible understanding is merely "anti-Bible polemics". Kuratowski's Ghost (talk) 17:01, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

The Darius of Daniel does not need to be anyone famous outside of Daniel. He was simply a ruler/king over the city of Babylon under Cyrus the Great who went on to other things in his conquest of Middle East. If I remember correctly this was in an era of transition from city-states to nations with cities. A person could be a ruler or king of some city but not a ruler of a nation. History mostly records the events of the rulers of the nations and not the rulers of this or that city. With the fall of Belshazzer, the city of Babylon fell from being the capital of an important nation, to just another captured city. The capitals of Cyrus and the Medes and Persians were Persipolis and Susa. The city of Babylon became just a backwater--has been--city. So the ruler of Babylon was probably not a big player in the overall scheme of things after Babylon's capture by Cyrus. Further, the latter chapters of Daniel place him not in Babylon but on the Banks of the Tigris (the Euphrates ran through Babylon). In chapter 8, in Babylon before it fell to Cyrus, he had a vision that he was in Susa, implying the future lack of importance of the city of Babylon. So Darius the Mede need not be anyone of importance outside of the captured city of Babylon. And so not likely to be in historical records. Christian Skeptic (talk) 16:53, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

My personal view is that the proposed replacement text is well written if a little overly simplistic. I would be happy for it to be included provided that alternative views, eg. Darius as another name for Cyrus or just a historical error by a later author, are given their due weight. I also feel that the detail about the birth date of "Gubaru" - which, as far as I can see, is not recorded in the Nabonidus Chronicle - needs a footnote and reference as it is a fairly crucial part of the argument. On "Gubaru", the governor mentioned in connection with the capture of Babylon in the Chronicle, the natural reading of the text suggests that he died after one month in power (Shea suggests it was the following year). There was another Gubaru (several Old Persian historical figures are known by this name) who became governor of Babylon and Transpotamia in the fourth regnal year of Cyrus - 535/4 BCE - but this can hardly be the same person or be identified with the biblical figure of "Darius the Mede". Other problems with the identification of Gubaru as Darius include the lack of any extra-biblical reference to him being a son of Ahasuerus/Xerxes, Median, or having the title of king. Josephus is a useful but not completely reliable secondary source who follows Daniel closely and may have been wresting with some of the same issues as modern commentators. On the period in question, for example, he describes a 17 year reign of Baltazar (= Daniel's Belshazzar) which conflicts with other data on the length of his "co-regency", and also seems to confuse him with Nabonidus in his list of Babylonian kings:

When Evil-Mcrodach was dead, after a reign of eighteen years, Niglissar his son took the government, and retained it forty years, and then ended his life; and after him the succession in the kingdom came to his son Labosordacus, who continued in it in all but nine months; and when he was dead, it came to Baltasar, (23) who by the Babylonians was called Naboandelus

While Josephus seems to know of other traditions about "Darius" he still can't be considered to be of equal value as other primary sources. His value as an accurate historian has been questioned by both leading conservative christian scholars, like WS Albright, as well as more recent Jewish apologists (eg http://www.centuryone.com/josephus.html). To dismiss other views because they "do not accord with Josephus" is therefore a little unfair. If the writer holds to an early date for Daniel he may also be somewhat dismayed to discover that Josephus goes on to refer to several books of Daniel and to interpret Daniel chapter eight as referring to the activities of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Overall I feel that the identification of Gubaru with Darius the Mede is a genuine option that has to be taken seriously, while the simpler explanation that this otherwise unknown figure is the result of a historical confusion has to be at least considered as a viable alternative.

--Sineaste (talk) 05:04, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

While Josephus is not infallible (no historian is) he does indeed present information about Darius the Mede that is not sourced from Daniel. The Yossipon when covering that particular section of Josephus records additional points about Darius the Mede independent of both Josephus and Daniel and both Josephus and the Yossipon clearly present Darius as a relative of Cyrus, the Yossipon making him the uncle and father-in-law. So firstly arguments made in the past that Darius the Mede is unkown outside Daniel are simply wrong and secondly arguments that he is supposed to be Cyrus do not fit the entire set of data we have, they require an assumption that the extra-Biblical traditions in Josephus and the Yossipon are wrong with no explanation of how these traditions arose while the Biblical tradition is essentially correct but merely has a problematic name for Cyrus. Taking into account the extra-Biblical data we have a match between the Cyaxares of Xenophon and Darius the Mede - Cyaxares is his uncle and the son of Astyages (as Josephus says) and is given a palace in Babylon (and what who lives in a palace, a ruler does) and the difference in name is not problematic as Cyaxares is a family name not a first name - he was the son of Astyages the son of an earlier individual called by the family name Cyaxares by Herodotus and in fact Josephus says Darius the Mede was known to the Greeks by another name. So Xenophon is another extra-Biblical source for the same Median ruler, also making him distinct from Cyrus. So view that Darius the Mede is Cyrus ignores a lot of data.

Josephus does not confuse Belshazzer with Nabonidus, Josephus discusses Nobonidus elsewhere calling him the correct name Nabonidus. He calls Belshazzar "Naboandelus" which is a different word to the name Nabonidus which he knew. (I don't know what has been said about the etymology of Naboandelus but I'd bet it means son of Nabonidus in some language of the time.) Kuratowski's Ghost (talk) 19:30, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary I feel that the evidence for Josephus confusing Belshazzar with Nabonidus is quite strong. A very cursory comparison of the two relevant sections in Antiquities and Against Apion reveals that Josephus in one instance lists Belshazzar as the final king of Babylon who reigns for 17 years with no mention of Nabonidus, while in the other he lists Nabonidus as the final Babylonian king who reigns for exactly the same period with no mention of Belshazzar. In Antiquities Cyrus and Darius make war against Belshazzar, in Apion they attack Nabonidus. In both the sequence of five kings starting with Nebuchadnezzar is exactly the same except for the name of the last king. The alternative name given to Belshazzar in Antiquities, unknown elsewhere as far as I can ascertain, seems to be an attempt to reconcile the two names. Evidence that Josephus is clearly drawing on two different traditions (in AA he is quoting Berosus) is found in the differing regnal years (eg in one "Evil-merodach" reigns 2 years while in the other it is 18, his successor reigns 4 in one and 40 in the other) and slight name variations (or is this just a difference in translators?) for the other Babylonian kings. And is the fact that Josephus, in Antiquities, delays the death of Belshazzar so that it does not occur on the night of the feast (a clear divergence from Daniel) another attempt to reconcile with Berosus who records Nabonidus dying peacefully outside of Babylon?

Despite the very few extra-Biblical facts about Darius that I acknowledged were present in Josephus, and despite the slim possibility that the Yossipon might contain additional reliable traditions, I really feel that both of these authors are being accorded too much weight. Josephus' primary dependence was upon Daniel and we have no guarantee that the extra information may not be a result of attempts to harmonise information in Daniel about Darius with alternative historical figures. This seems to have been his approach with Belshazzar. The Yossipon is a medieval (tenth century) Jewish document that admits to embellishing Josephus and is very historically inventive when it comes, for example, to describing the origins of Rome in order to suit the author's anti-christian polemic. While the information about Darius is incidental to the author's purposes, and therefore likely to be more reliable, it cannot be given much weight due to its great distance from the events concerned. Put simply, the name Darius the Mede is unknown in ancient literature and its use in Josephus, in a section of Antiquities which focuses on the stories and visions of the book of Daniel, is almost certainly dependent upon Daniel itself.

In the case of Cyaxares there are also complications. Xenophon also knows a Gubaru (Gobryas), an Assyrian/Babylonian noble who becomes a close companion of Cyrus, fights alongside him, and is prominent in the capture of Babylon. This tends to make the equation Gubaru = Cyaxares difficult if relying on Xenaphon. Cyaxares is a Median king and relative of Cyrus who takes no part in the capture of Babylon. It is Cyrus who stays in Babylon after its capture and acts as its king and ruler. It is only some time after the fall of Babylon when Cyrus returns to Persia that he stops off to visit Cyaxares, telling him “that a palace in Babylon and an estate had been set aside for him so that he might have a residence of his own whenever he came there”. This hardly sounds as though he is installing Cyaxares as resident governor. Rather it suggests the offer a luxurious residence, befitting Cyaxares position, whenever he VISITS Babylon. Babylon, unlike many smaller cities, was known to contain several palaces in this period. After visiting his father in Persia and marrying Cyaxares’ daughter Cyrus returns to Babylon. There is no suggestion that Cyaxares also travels to Babylon and we hear no more of him after this. Rather it is Cyrus who goes on to reside and rule there. Cyrus, like Darius in Daniel, sets up satraps to administer his greater empire and even during his ongoing territorial campaigns bases himself in Babylon for seven months of the year. It should also be noted that most historians consider “Cyaxares II” to be an invention of the author as this individual is unknown in any of the other histories. Xenaphon’s Cyropaedia is of course a partly fictional account of Cyrus’ life which has long been recognised to contain historical inaccuracies. --Sineaste (talk) 06:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the Nabonidus Chronicle and Gubaru, upon doing some reading I find that the assumption that the name Ugbaru is identical to Gubaru is unfounded, the names look very different in cuneiform besides the obvious difference in pronunciation and it seems most of the arguments for or against an historical Darius the Mede seem to miss the point that Ugbaru does not equal Gubaru. Ugbaru was the governor of Gutium, Gubaru was governor of Babylon. Ugbaru died early (either a month or a year later), Gubaru didn't, what we finally put in the article needs to clearly distinguish between what the text says about each and not assume that its talking about the same person. Whitcomb points out a match between Gubaru and Darius the Mede not between Ugbaru and Darius the Mede. When I first looked at the Nabonidus Chronicle my assumption was that Ugbaru dies a year later, it talks about the month of Arahshamnu then it talks about later months then the death in Arahshamnu again, so it looks like it means the Arahshamnu in the following year. On the other hand the entire section falls under the intro saying 17th year, in which case it refers to the same month as the fall of Babylon. Kuratowski's Ghost (talk) 20:01, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes you're quite right here and I stand corrected. I'd read a translation which didn't really indicate the differences - although I note that some interpreters still maintain they represent the same person. One thing that we loose, however, with distinguishing between two individuals is the link to Media. Gutium is often understood to be a part of Media and this was one of the reasons for linking Ugbaru with Darius "the Mede". Another problem is that Xenophon records a Gobryas as being one of the prominent generals involved in the capture of Babylon but knows of no Ugbaru, which tends to corroborate the view that Gubaru and Ugbaru are the same person. William Shea originally held to the view that Gubaru was Darius but felt forced to reconsider this in 1991 in light of new cuneiform evidence which made it clear that Cambyses, Cyrus’ son, held the title “King of Babylon” for nine to ten months after the city was captured until Cyrus took over the title in addition to his existing designation “King of the Lands”. (Shea had previously dated this co-regency in the last year of Cyrus to support the theory that Gubaru ruled during the first year). This obviously leaves no room for a third kingship of Gubaru and also dovetails nicely with Xenaphon’s story of a trip to Persia by Cyrus after he had captured Babylon. Shea, incidentally, now believes that “Darius the Mede” is a throne name of Cyrus. (see [1] ) --Sineaste (talk) 07:06, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Footnote: Subsequent reading has lead to the discovery that Shea once again did a back flip on this question in 1996 – reverting to his original Ugbaru thesis. I record his argument here in an effort to display the lengths conservative commentators have to go to get around this problem, although Shea is probably an extreme case when it comes to constructing ingenious but rather unwieldy arguments to defend conservative christian positions.

Shea advances several propositions in his 1996 article [2] in an effort to prove that the Ugbaru/Gubaru of the Nabonidus Chronicle [3] is Daniel’s Darius the Mede. Firstly he suggests that even though Ugbaru only governs for 25 days this need not conflict with the chronological information in Daniel. Daniel merely refers to Darius’ first year and a thirty day period, during which Darius could have died. Secondly his argument relies on several reinterpretations and retranslations of text in the Nabonidus Chronicle in order to demonstrate that: (i) the solders stationed at the Esagila temple (line 16b-17) were there to prevent worship of the gods because of Darius’ decree in Daniel 6 prohibiting prayer for 30 days (Nabonidus had previously transported many regional gods to the city in an effort to protect it) (ii) the text should be retranslated to read that everything ceased in the temple until the appointed time (ie the 30 days of Darius’ decree) had passed (iii) the regional gods were not transported back to their home cities until after the 30 days had ended in the following month (lines 21-22) (iv) the section referring to Cyrus entering the city and Ugbaru installing administrators should be retranslated to read that Cyrus established peace to the city, Ugbaru offered peace to all Babylonia, and [Ugbaru’s] governor, who Shea identifies as Daniel, appointed sub governors. (v) this was the second round of administrative appointments because several of the previously chosen officials had been eaten by lions (Daniel 6!) (vi) the sections dealing with the death of Ugbaru and the subsequent death of an unspecified queen should be retranslated to remove reference to a later date for the queen’s death - the inference being that they died at the same time. Shea extends this argument to reason that the second person was Ugbaru’s wife – inferring that Ugbaru must therefore have been king - and that because they died together at night the best explanation is that they were poisoned.

In a follow up article in 2001 [4] Shea changes his mind again and goes on to repudiate points (i), (ii), (iv) and (v) above. He reverts to the more logical arguments that the soldiers were there to ensure the protection of the temple, and that Ugbaru was himself the “governor” who appointed officials in the Nabonidus Chronicle.

In the publication Shea points out that new archaeological data caused him to abandon the argument he had been making. Christian Skeptic (talk) 16:07, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually Shea's change of view on the points listed immediately above had nothing to do with new archeological data. He simply changed his mind on how the Nabonidus Chronicle should be translated because his 1996 arguments didn't hold up well. He had previously changed his mind about Gubaru being Darius in a 1991 article because archeological evidence made it clear that that Cambyses was co-regent during the first year of Cyrus - leaving no room for a third king. What Shea has done in his 1996 and 2001 articles is to try to fit Gubaru/Ugbaru into the picture again only to arrive at the absurd position that Ugbaru/Darius only reigned as king for one week! This hardly fits the picture of the king in Daniel 6 who has time to appoint 120 satraps "throughout the kingdom" and to evaluate Daniel's performance sufficiently to consider him for promotion to a crucial role. --Sineaste (talk) 08:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Shea tries to explain the fact that Ugbaru is only described as governor by suggesting that Ugbaru did not become king, or co-regent, until Cyrus arrived and had only been a military governor until then. Consequently we are left with a period of “about one week” in total for Darius’ reign as king of Babylon. Shea then moves on to even more speculative ground by proposing that (i) the reference in Daniel to Gabriel “confirming” and “strengthening” Darius refers to: (a) Ugbaru’s confirmation as king and (b) his need for support when Daniel was thrown to the lions. (ii) Daniel’s prayer in chapter nine “at the time of the evening sacrifice” refers to sacrifices in the temple of Marduk (rather than that of Jerusalem), portions of which would have been distributed to the king. (Shea suggests that only prayer, not sacrifice, was forbidden by Darius’ decree) Thus it was the priests of Marduk who poisoned Ugbaru/Darius because he had disrupted worship of their god. Ugbaru thus dies on the very night that Daniel prays in chapter nine (!).

The fact that Shea has had to resort to such questionable arguments to support the Ugbaru identification suggests to me that there is no simple solution available to defenders of Daniel’s historical accuracy on this question. Personally I feel that his earlier position on Cyrus is easier to defend but even this solution completely fails to explain why such a well known figure as Cyrus is never called Darius in any other historical source. Overall the simplest explanation, in the absence of new archaeological evidence, is that the book of Daniel is historically inaccurate. --Sineaste (talk) 06:12, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

God in Aramaic

In the Aramaic section of Daniel (Dan 2 to 7), according to Strong's exhaustive concordance lexicon the word "God" is translated from 'elahh (Aramaic). In the Hebrew portion of Daniel (Dan 1, 8-12), "God" is translated from 'elohiym. This is not God's name but rather the title: God. The name of God is considered to be Yahweh or alternatively Jehovah. Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:40, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Recognised for Millennia?

I am puzzled by the intent of the last unit of the Structure section titled: Grouping Emphasizes Prophecies. (As discussed above, I already have major problems with William Shea’s tiny-minority (NPOV) and poorly evidenced suggestion that “the Messiah dies alone” is the structural highpoint and central message of the book). When it comes to the “parallelism between the prophecies” that the writer announces in haughty tones “has been recognized for millennia”: does this mean that Daniel 2, 7, 8 and 11 have been traditionally interpreted as covering the same sequence of empires? This seems to be the intent of the linked article which attempts to prove that this has been the historic Christian and Jewish interpretation from earliest times. There are, however, no quotes from the long list of commentators which relate to chapters 8 and 11. The most we are told is that because Hippolytus considered the four kingdoms of chapters 2 and 7 to be Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, then he “had to consider” chapter eight as parallel also. Finally at the end of the linked article we are presented with a table in which the author attempts to show that the description of the little horn of Daniel eight parallels that of the fourth kingdom of chapter seven. We are told that alternative interpretations (I take this to mean interpretations which refer to the activities of Antiochus Epiphanes) only started to arise in the sixteenth century as part of the Catholic Counter-Reformation and then in the mid nineteenth century with the advent of higher criticism. Unfortunately this is completely false.

It is a well known fact that when Judea came under Roman control both Jewish and Christian commentators reinterpreted the fourth kingdom of chapters two and seven as Rome. The writer, however, needs to prove that not only chapters two and seven but also chapters eight and eleven (referred to as A", A'" in the main article) have been traditionally interpreted by Christian and Jewish commentators as referring to Rome rather than Antiochus Epiphanes. I await the production of this evidence with interest and suggest that if it is not forthcoming then the text of this ambiguous and misleading reference to historic interpretation be either deleted or drastically modified. --Sineaste (talk) 07:35, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

I did not include quotes from each person listed because I felt it would make the article too long. The intent was to link the names in the list to articles where the quotes could be found. I've been able to include quotes in only a few of the linked pages for lack of time on my part. I have the quotes, but time is the problem. Also, as can be seen, many of the names do not have Wikipages yet. Christian Skeptic (talk) 15:11, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Between the years 1 and ~1600 AD: Prophyry, Cyprian, Ephriam, and Polychronius claim the little horn of ch7 was Antiochus, but they say nothing about ch8 or ch11. Josephus, Origen and Thomas Aquainas claim 'great horn' of ch8 is Antiochus, but they say nothing about ch7 or ch11.

About 1600: Ribera, Bellarmine (Catholic counter-Reformation Jesuits) claim Antiochus in ch7, ch8, ch9, and ch11. Christian Skeptic (talk) 15:59, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Look, to be honest I agree with you that the visions in the context of the book all focus on the same conclusion. It's just that we differ on what that conclusion is. Whereas you take the apocalyptic template or paradigm and apply it to a later historical period (which is perfectly in harmony with apocalyptic thinking and traditional christian interpretation) I ask what the book said to the generation that suffered under Antiochus. My contention is that the explicitness of chapters 11 and eight mean that the first application must be to the second century audience. This does not automatically imply deceit or forgery on the part of the author or complier who may have had good reasons for concealing his identity - especially given a dangerous situation where an attempt was made to obliterate jewish religion and turn the temple into a pagan cult centre.

Coming back to the question of historic interpretation I feel that the main body article as it stands is ambiguous because it doesn't say how the four chapters in question are parallel or exactly what it is that has been "recognised for millennia". The assumption of many readers, especially, after clicking on the linked section, would be that up until the sixteenth nearly all Christian and Jewish commentators interpreted chapters 2, 7, 8 and 11 as covering the Roman era and beyond. Although I don't have a very detailed knowledge of the history of christian interpretation some quick checking has revealed that this is not the case.

Hippolytus, who is quoted in the linked article, identified the little horn of chapter eight as Antiochus and viewed the time prediction in v14 as applying to the period the temple services were disrupted under him. In chapter eleven he distinguishes between a historical fulfilment in the reign of Antiochus and a future universal fulfilment in the person of the “antichrist”. Josephus before him, from a Jewish perspective, also applied the vision and time period of chapter eight solely to Antiochus. Even Jerome, writing against Porphyry, holds that the little horn of chapter eight is primarily Antiochus and that the 2300 days describes the time that the temple was defiled under his rule – although, like Hippolytus, he feels that Antiochus is a “type” of the future antichrist. These examples alone suggest that the identification of Antiochus Epiphanes in Daniel is a very old and enduring tradition – despite application of chapters two and seven to Roman times. Consequently the suggestion that these chapters have, until recently, always been seen as parallel is hard to sustain and needs to be altered or clarified. --210.11.37.250 (talk) 01:41, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

While indeed a handfull of early expositor proposed Antiochus as the little horn or the great horn it still remains that by far the majority [several dozen] of expositors for over 2 millinia did not. And all of them, to different degrees, consider the prophecies parallel. Christian Skeptic (talk) 03:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I really think that you’ve missed the point completely here. It is not enough to simply assume that most patristic commentators find the same sequence of kingdoms in chapter 8 and 11 as they do in chapters 2 and 7. You must provide evidence. Remember you are arguing that the structural parallels prove all four chapters (the “A” sections) follow the same historical sequence. This is what you so confidently state has been “recognized for millennia”.

This means that to include anyone on your list of historical commentators you must demonstrate that they identify the same sequence of kingdoms in all four chapters. This has clearly not been done because some of the most prominent church fathers that you mention do not do this (see below). Consequently I really have to question whether any of them support your position.

You assert in a very sweeping statement that “only a handful of commentators” before the year 1600 identify Antiochus Epiphanes anywhere in Daniel. But this is not the case.

The two commentaries on Daniel from the patristic period which tower over all others in importance are those of Hippolytus (who wrote the first systematic commentary on Daniel in the early church) and Jerome (who wrote the most important and influential work). Hippolytus probably wrote his commentary between 202-204 and was almost certainly dependent on his second century predecessors, including Irenaeus, for the majority of his positions. One patristic scholar takes the view that his only original contribution was using the six thousand year scheme of world history (common in the early church and possibly derived from Judaism) to indicate a delayed parousia (due to arrive around 500CE). It is widely recognized that Hippolytus interprets Daniel 8 with reference to Antiochus Epiphanes only (apologies for the lengthy quotes that follow but it seems that unless the patristic authors are quoted directly Christian Sceptic is going to keep on claiming that they support his position). There is no suggestion of Rome or even of a later Antichrist application:

For Alexander waged war against Darius, and overcame him, and made himself master of the whole sovereignty, after routing and destroying his camp. Then, after the exaltation of the he-goat, his horn—the great one, namely--was broken; and there arose four horns under it, toward the four winds of heaven. For, when Alexander had made himself master of all the land of Persia, and had reduced its people into subjection, he thereupon died, after dividing his kingdom into four principalities, as has been shown above. And from that time "one horn was exalted, and waxed great, even to the power of heaven; and by him the sacrifice," he says, "was disturbed, and righteousness cast down to the ground."

For Antiochus arose, surnamed Epiphanes, who was of the line of Alexander. And after he had reigned in Syria, and brought under him all Egypt, he went up to Jerusalem, and entered the sanctuary, and seized all the treasures in the house of the Lord, and the golden candlestick, and the table, and the altar, and made a great slaughter in the land; even as it is written: "And the sanctuary shall be trodden under foot, unto evening and unto morning, a thousand and three hundred days." For it happened that the sanctuary remained desolate during that period, three years and a half, that the thousand and three hundred days might be fulfilled; until Judas Maccabaeus arose after the death of his father Matthias, and withstood him, and destroyed the encampment of Antiochus, and delivered the city, and recovered the sanctuary, and restored it in strict accordance with the law.''

In chapter 11 Hippolytus again identifies Antiochus but also sees a description of the final Antichrist (a warmongering Jew who rebuilds the Jerusalem temple, persecutes the church, and appears just before the end of the six thousand year period mentioned above), distinguishing between an abomination of destruction (Antiochus) and one of desolation (Antichrist). So at least for Hippolytus the succession of kingdoms in chapters 2 and 7 (where he identifies the fourth kingdom as Rome) is not parallel to the succession of kingdoms described in chapters 8 and 11.

Referring to Jerome’s commentary Wilbur Smith writes: The most important single work produced by the Church Fathers on any of the prophetic writings of the Old Testament, commenting upon the original Hebrew text, and showing a complete mastery of all the literature of the Church on the subjects touched upon to the time of composition, is without question St. Jerome's Commentary on the Book of Daniel… For over eleven hundred years after its publication, all who wrote on Daniel showed themselves more indebted to this work by Jerome than to any other commentary on the Old Testament Scriptures produced in the period of the Church Fathers. http://www.preteristarchive.com/ChurchHistory/0408_jerome_daniel.html Jerome commenting on Daniel 8 writes:

"And (he had) a large horn. ..." refers to the first king, Alexander himself. When he died in Babylon at the age of thirty-two, his four generals rose up in his place and divided his empire among themselves... "And a long time afterward" there shall arise "a king of Syria who shall be of shameless countenance and shall understand (evil) counsels," even Antiochus Epiphanes, the son of the Seleucus who was also called Philopator. Verse 9. After he had been a hostage to Rome, and had without the knowledge of the Senate obtained rule by treachery, Antiochus fought with Ptolemy Philometor, that is, "against the South" and against Egypt; and then again "against the East," and against those who were fomenting revolution in Persia. At the last he fought against the Jews and captured Judea…

Verses 11, 12. And as for the statement, "And he glorified himself even against the Prince of Power," this means that he lifted himself up against God and persecuted His saints. He even took away the endelekhismos or "continual offering" which was customarily sacrificed in the morning and at even, and he prevailed to the casting down of the "place of His sanctuary." And he did not do this by his own prowess, but only "on account of the sins of the people." And thus it came to pass that truth was prostrated upon the ground, and as the worship of idols flourished, the religion of God suffered an eclipse.'' " 'How long shall be the vision concerning the continual sacrifice and the sin of the desolation that is made, and the sanctuary and the strength be trodden under foot?'" One angel asks another angel for how long a period the Temple is by the judgment of God to be desolated under the rule of Antiochus, King of Syria, and how long the image of Jupiter is to stand in God's Temple (according to his additional statement: "... and the sanctuary and the strength be trodden under foot?").

Verse 14. And he answered him, " 'Until the evening and the morning, until two thousand three hundred days (C); and then the sanctuary shall be cleansed.' " If we read the Books of Maccabees and the history of Josephus, we shall find it there recorded that in the one hundred and forty-third year after the Seleucus who first reigned in Syria after the decease of Alexander, Antiochus entered Jerusalem, and after wreaking a general devastation he returned again in the third year and set up the statue of Jupiter in the Temple. Up until the time of Judas Macca-baeus, that is, up until the one hundred and eighth year, Jerusalem lay waste over a period of six years, and for three [of those] years the Temple lay defiled; making up a total of two thousand three hundred days plus three months… At the end of the period the Temple was purged. Some authorities read two hundred instead of two thousand three hundred, in order to avoid the apparent excess involved in six years and three months. Most of our commentators refer this passage to the Antichrist, and hold that that which occurred under Antiochus was only by way of a type which shall be fulfilled under Antichrist. And as for the statement, "The sanctuary shall be cleansed," this refers to the time of Judas Maccabaeus, who came from the village of Modin, and who being aided by the efforts of his brothers (D) and relatives and many of the Jewish people [defeated?] [the verb is left out] the generals of Antiochus not far above Emmaus (which is now called Nicopolis). And hearing of this, Antiochus, who had risen up against the Prince of princes, that is, against the Lord of lords and King of kings, was earnestly desirous of despoiling the temple of Diana which was located in Elimais, in the Persian district, because it possessed valuable votive offerings. And when he there lost his army, he was destroyed without hands, that is to say, he died of grief. As for the mention of evening and morning [in that fourteenth verse], this signifies the succession of day and night.

Note that Jerome is very careful to apply the detail of chapter eight from v 9 onwards to the time of Antiochus only. This is surprising since he was writing his commentary, according to his own introduction, to counteract the view of Porphyry who thought the work a forgery written by a pseudonymous author in the second century, applying all of its visions to the time of Antiochus. If the mainstream interpretation had been to apply the little horn of chapter eight to Rome surely Jerome would have utilised this interpretation to weaken Porphyry’s argument as he readily does in chapter 11. It is even more surprising when we read that “Most of our commentators [ie Christian commentators] refer this passage to the Antichrist” – yet, unlike his comments in chapter eleven where he sees a primary reference to Antichrist in the last verses and only grudgingly admits an initial fulfilment by Antiochus, there is not another word about Antichrist in his interpretation of this chapter. It is also to be noted that the other Christian commentators Jerome refers to do not simply apply the chapter to Antichrist in a narrow, one-dimensional way but “hold that what occurred under Antiochus was only by way of a type which shall be fulfilled under Antichrist” i.e. they still see Antiochus here but view the complete fulfilment to be still future. Note that for Jerome, like Hippolytus, Antichrist is expected to be a Jewish king.

Another example of a prominent church father who interpreted both chapter eight and chapter eleven with reference to Antiochus Epiphanes, while holding that other visions extended to Roman times, was John Chrysostom (347-407). In Against the Jews (Homily 5, VII) he applies both chapter eight and eleven to Antiochus with no mention of a later application to Antichrist or another kingdom.

(3) Next he spoke of Alexander of Macedon and said: "Behold, a he-goat came from the southwest across the whole earth without touching the ground. And the goat had a horn to be seen midway between his eyes." He then spoke of Alexander's encounter with Darius and the victory won by Macedonian might. "The goat came up to the horned ram, grew savage, struck the ram,"-I must cut short the account-"broke both his horns and there was no one to rescue the ram from his power."

(4) After that Daniel spoke of Alexander's death and the four kings who succeeded him: "And at the height of its power the great horn was shattered, and in its place there came up four others, facing the four winds of heaven." Daniel then passed from this point to the reign of Antiochus and showed that he came from one of those four when he said: "Out of one of them came one strong horn, and it became very powerful toward the south and the east." Daniel then went on to show that Antiochus destroyed the Jewish commonwealth and way of life when he said: "And through him the sacrifice was disordered by transgression; and it came to pass. that he prospered. And the holy place will be laid waste and sin replaced the sacrifice. After' the altar was destroyed and the holy places trampled underfoot, he set up an idol within and offered unlawful sacrifices to the demons; righteousness was cast to the ground. He both did this and prospered.

(5) Then again, for a second time, he spoke of the same reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, the bondage, and the capture and desolation of the temple; this time, however, he gave the date of these events. He again began, toward the end of the book, with the empire of Alexander and described all the intervening accomplishments of the Seleucids and the Ptolemies in their wars against each other, the exploits of their generals, the strategies, the victories, the armies, the battles fought on land and sea. When he came to Antiochus he ended by saying: "His armed forces shall rise up, defile the sanctuary, and remove the continuity" (and by the continuity he meant the uninterrupted daily sacrifices) "and in its place they will put an abomination. By treachery they will lead off those who violate the covenant" (that is, the transgressors among the Jews whom they will remove and keep with themselves); "but the people who know their God shall take strong action" (he means the events in the time of the Maccabees: Judas. Simon, and John). "And the wise men of the people will have understanding of many things but they will fall by the sword and by fire" (here again he describes the burning of Jerusalem) "and by exile and the plunder days. And when they fall, they will receive a little help" (he means that, in the midst of those evils, they will be able to draw a breath and rise from the dread things which have overtaken them), "but many will join them out of treachery. And they shall fall from the number of the wise?° He said this to show that even many of those who stood firm will fall.''

Evidence that the identification of Antiochus IV in Daniel 8 and, to a certain extent, 11 was the mainstream Christian position is found in the persistence of this view in Reformation times. Martin Luther, known primarily for naming the pope as Antichrist, recognised a dual reference to Antiochus and Antichrist in both Daniel 8 and 11. John Calvin, whose commentary is widely regarded as the most scholarly of his time, interpreted chapter eight with reference to Antiochus only, while he interprets the bulk of chapter 11 the same way but then sees Rome in v36 onwards.

In summary we see a clear picture emerging of chapter eight being applied almost universally to Antiochus Epiphanes, with some Christian commentators also detecting a later application to Antichrist. With chapter 11 Antiochus is, similarly, almost always acknowledged up to at least the latter verses of the chapter, with a wider variety of interpretation evident at that point. At the same time, however, Rome is viewed as the fourth kingdom in chapters two and seven by nearly all commentaries (although there is a dissenting Syriac tradition in the Eastern Church which identifies the last three kingdoms as Media, Persia, and Greece). This clearly contradicts the view that chapters 2, 7, 8 and 11 have been interpreted as parallel by Jews and Christians for over two thousand years.

To conclude I see no reason why Wikipedia should be used to propagate the fundamentalist myth that, apart from ‘a handful of early expositors’, the majority Christian tradition did not identify Antiochus in the visions of Daniel until the advent of the Counter-Reformation in the 16th century (the Jesuit Conspiracy view) and of higher criticism in the 19th.

On the contrary it is denominationally blinkered Seventh Day Adventist commentators (apart from Hippolytus, references in the linked article are all to SDA authors) and their ilk that have broken with mainstream Christian tradition by interpreting the little horn of Daniel 8 as Rome and by refusing to acknowledge any reference to Antiochus in chapter 11. I see no value whatsoever in the error strewn and highly misleading linked article and suggest that it be removed immediately. --Sineaste (talk) 04:55, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we are conflating two points here. First, Were the prophecies of Chapters 2, 7, 8, and 11-12 considered parallel by scholars over the millennia? and second, What were the interpretation of symbols in those prophecies? I believe that it is a resounding yes for the first. But for the second, there has been and is wide interpretation of the symbols with a major focus on the identification of the Little Horn of chap 7, the Great Horn of chap 8, and the king of the North in parts of chap 11 as the Antichrist, Antiochus E., or both.

Just because Hippolytus, Jerome, Luther, Calvin and others identify some symbols as Antiochus E, does not nullify the fact that they considered the prophecies 2, 7, 8 and 11-12 to be parallel prophecies. I believe that you will find that I have attempted to steer clear from interpretation of the symbols, choosing to focus just on literary structure when discussing these chapters.

The list of names are just a list because it would be book-length to quote from all the names on one wiki-page. As stated above, I've been working to place notes or quotes on the wiki pages for those names that show their position on the parallelism of the prophetic chapters. I have not been making statements in the main article about interpretation of the symbols, but about the understanding that the prophecies are parallel. Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:11, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Well that’s certainly not the impression you would get from reading the linked article.

1. After repeating the structural diagram from the main article the first attempt to describe what you mean by the historic Christian view of parallel visions reads:

More than just the fact that some prophecies are grouped together, they deal with the same topic. This parallelism between the prophecies has been recognized for millinia [sic].

So it is not just structure, or grouping, that makes them parallel but the fact that they ‘deal with the same topic’. Clearly if chapter 8 focuses on the actions of Antiochus Epiphanes it does not deal with the same topic as chapters 2 and 7, according the Christian commentators I have cited above.

By "same topic" I was meaning prophecies about lists of kings and kingdoms. I was not meaning specific kingdoms. Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

2. The next attempt to define what you mean by “parallel” is found in the section titled: The Visions Considered Parallel by Christians of all Ages.

The first recognition of a parallel between the visions of chapters 2, 7, and 8 is probably lost in history, however, one of the earliest Christian theologians, Hyppolytus [sic] in about 170-236 AD, was likely the first to put it to paper in the following interpretation.

The golden head of the image is identical with the lioness, by which the Babylonians were represented.

The golden shoulders and the arms of silver are the same with the bear, by which the Persians and Medes are meant.

The belly and thighs of brass are the leopard, by which the Greeks who ruled from Alexander onwards are intended.

The legs of iron are the dreadful and terrible beast, by which the Romans who hold the empire now are meant.

The toes of clay and iron are the ten horns which are to be.''

The one other little horn springing up in their midst is the antichrist.''

The stone that smites the image and breaks it in pieces, and that filled the whole earth, is Christ, who comes from heaven and brings judgment on the world.[2]''

Here you explicitly state that what Hippolytus is doing by finding a particular sequence of kingdoms in Daniel 2 (Babylon: Medo-Persia: Greece: Rome: Antichrist: Christ) is recognising ‘a parallel between the visions of chapters 2, 7 and 8’.

If you read my comment following the quote from Hyppolytus, you will see that I point out that in order for Hyppolytus to make such a statement he had to consider the propheices of 2, 7, and 8 to be parallel. "More important than Hyppolytus' interpretation is that in order to make such an interpretation, ..." I consider his interpretation secondary in importance to the fact that he thought the three prophecies to be parallel in order to make his interpretation. Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

However a normal reading of this passage would create the erroneous impression that chapter 8 covers an identical succession of kingdoms. Perhaps you could explain how this quotation proves that Hippolytus viewed chapter 8 as 'parallel". --Sineaste (talk) 04:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

In Chapters 2 and 7 only one kingdom is specifically identified--the head of Gold as Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar. The second and third kingdoms are not identified. Only in Chapter 8 is the Ram identified as Media/Persia and the Goat as Greece. For Hyppolytus to call the second and third kingdoms of chapters 2 and 7 Media/Persia and Greece he had to consider the Chest and Arms of Silver (2), the Bear (7), and the Ram (8) [Media/Persia] to be parallel. And the Bronze thighs (2), the winged Leopard (7), and the Goat (8) [Greece] to be parallel. By giving the identification of these symbols God is teaching the reader how to interpret the symbols so that the meaning of other symbols not specifically identified can be deduced.

The same or similar words, phrases, or thoughts found in parallel sections of each chapter (and in no other sections)--as illustrated by the bold case words in the illustrations--are very strong literary clues to the parallelism between the various sections of each chapter. Christian Skeptic (talk) 06:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

3. In the following section when you examine ‘parallel elements between chapters 2 and 7’ you talk of ‘four kingdoms arriving in sequential order’ and explain the parallel language used to describe the first kingdom in each chapter as the reason it has been identified as Babylon by ‘students of prophecy for nearly 2 milinia [sic]’. Clearly the reader would infer that identification of specific kingdoms (i.e. the ones mentioned by Hippolytus) is what has been recognised for millennia.

Hyppolytus' interpretation has been agreed with for millennia. True enough, not everyone has agreed with Hyppolytus, but that is besides the point. The point is that the prophecies have been considered parallel. Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

4. The elaboration of what you really mean by “parallel”, i.e. a specific sequence of kingdoms in which Rome is the final kingdom followed by Antichrist and the heavenly kingdom, becomes even clearer when you discuss the Counter Reformation and modern interpretation at the end of your list of theologians. Despite the fact that modern commentators apply all of the visions to the time of Antiochus (using the sequence Babylon: Media: Persia: Greece) and that this agrees with your structural principle of considering them parallel, you state that ‘the parallels between the prophecies began to be questioned or rejected by some’. This can only mean that you make no distinction between general structural parallels and the identification of the specific kingdoms listed in your article.

I can see the inconsistency in the comments. Clearly the interpretation and parallelism between the prophecies is mixed and needs to be clarified. Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

5. The article ends with a section titled: Daniel 8 Parallel with Chapters 2 & 7. Here we find a table which specifically equates the little horn of chapter 8 with the fourth kingdom of chapter 7, identified previously as Rome. Again this does not represent the historic, mainstream Christian interpretation but rather a Seventh Day Adventist belief masquerading as a traditional interpretation.

The tables are strictly based upon parallels in phrases and words, i.e. literary devices, between chapters 2 & 7 and between chapters 7 & 8. [note words in bold case] There is no attempt at interpretation of the symbols, but simply noting that the same symbols appear in the different chapters in parallel sections and in the same order. There is no attempt to interpret the symbols here. Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Although you don't spell it out the natural conclusion of any reader would be that this identification of the fourth kingdom of chapter seven with the arrogant horn of chapter eight has been the mainstream christian position for thousands of years. They would also naturally identify this arrogant horn as Rome based on your quotation from Hippolytus earlier in the article. In this section on the parallels between Daniel 7 and 8 you specifically mention Hippolytus again and state that 'Chapters 7, and 8 have been considered parallel by theologians for nearly 2 millennia'. As I have demonstrated above this is simply not true. My point is that this is your private (or denominational) interpretation and has nothing to do with the mainstream christian position over the centuries. --Sineaste (talk) 04:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The fact remains that the position expressed by Hippolytus has been held by many theologians for millennia, consider those named in the list given. Who defines mainstream? Those who just happen to be the most well known? Or, Those with whom you agree? And, is the truth of the Bible determined by how many believe it? This reduces down to [Argumentum ad numerum]. Christian Skeptic (talk) 06:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

6. Finally, if there are any doubts remaining about what you have meant by “parallel” up to now I suggest looking four topics up this discussion page at the section titled ‘Parallel Prophecies’ added around December 07. Here you write:

The prophecies of Daniel 2, 7, 8, and 11-12 have long been recognized as parallel prophecies that cover over and again the same periods of time in history. The following table shows how all 4 prophecies are parallel as has been interpreted by Bible scholars of all ages. Some wax poetic about Antiochus fulfilling Chp 11. That's [sic] pales to insignificance when compared to how all 4 prophecies dovetail together.

In the chart that follows you clearly identify the blasphemous horn of chapter 8 and the King of the North of chapter 11 (vv20-39) as ‘Pagan and Papal Rome’. You also interpret the ‘2300 days/cleansing of the sanctuary’ of chapter 8 and the ‘time of the end’ of chapter 11 as ‘Superpower and Sanctuary Judgement’ in a clear reference to the Adventist doctrine of an “investigative judgement” that begins in 1844 after a 2300 year “prophetic” period.

Once again we see that “parallel” means the visions cover ‘the same periods of time in history’ and the information in the table is meant to show ‘how all four prophecies are parallel as has been interpreted by Bible scholars of all ages’. This is blatantly untrue, of course, as again we see Seventh Day Adventist doctrine being falsely represented as mainstream Christian interpretation. I reiterate my suggestion that the link between the main article on Daniel and the erroneous and tiny minority views of the attached “Daniel Prophecy Literary Parallels” article be severed. --Sineaste (talk) 05:49, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe that the prophecies are both parallel in literary structure and in interpretation. But, I can see that I have been inconsistent in my use of the term parallel. I've been trying to stick with just parallels in literary structure, but have gotten of track at times. Don't get sucked into the idea that just because 'mainstream' interpretation is in the majority that it is anywhere near correct. Biblical truth is not determined by numbers, but by the Holy Spirit. An interpretation may or may not be correct, but only the Holy Spirit can guide the individual into truth. I'm not saying that SDAs have all truth, but just be careful of accepting the majority view just because it is the majority view. For as Jesus has said "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." Christian Skeptic (talk) 17:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I have no issue with your personal beliefs provided that they are identified as such - in fact I also believe that the visions parallel and overlap each other although my interpretation differs from yours. (Though, incidentally, I don't accept Shea's proposed literary structure of chapters eight to twelve and don't know of any independent scholar that does). I do have a major problem, however, with the implication that your position is actually identical with the "mainstream" interpretation of christianity through the ages. To my mind it's really impossible to start comparing the literary parallels in detail without also insinuating parallel interpretations - which is clearly the case here. Perhaps you could clarify and flesh out the SDA position and insert it in a section on Seventh Day Adventist beliefs. I really don't feel that it belongs here. --Sineaste (talk) 04:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I feel certain that the literary parallels can make a consistent chronology without any need for interpretation until the end. If you follow JUST the literary structure and word/phrase/thought parallelisms of the text one will then be able to put together the intended interpretation.

Three of the prophecies (2, 7, 11-12) begin in Daniel's day and end with the setting up of God's Kingdom. Chapter 8 begins in Daniel's day and ends with the Cleansing of the Sanctuary. It isn't hard to see the implication that somehow the Cleansing of the Sanctuary is in someway associated with the setting up of God's Kingdom. The important point is that ALL these prophecies cover the same time period--from Daniel through to God's Kingdom. Thus they are all parallel in time. So we have literary parallels and a time parallel. Why should it be an issue that these prophecies are parallel with each other? Christian Skeptic (talk) 06:00, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely. Nearly all modern scholars would agree that they are parallel - the difference being that they interpret the fourth kingdom of chs 2 and 7 as Greece rather than seeing Rome in chapter 8. This approach requires taking much less liberty with the text than that which tries to force thousands of years ("pagan and papal Rome") into the symbol of a horn that clearly represents an individual king who desecrates the Jewish temple and precipitates a major crisis in Jewish history. Your interpretation of Daniel 8 is neither required by the literary structure of the book nor supported by normative christian tradition. It should most definitely not be representated as such.

As for the Danielic vision of an eschatalogical kingdom (which incidentally is always represented in very cryptic fashion) your conclusion that because this has not yet eventuated then the rest of the visions must be forced to correspond to the whole span of history up to the present day is unwarranted and does violence to the literal meaning of the text. The same sense of imminence is highly visible in both the Dead Sea Scrolls and New Testament writings which both anticipate, in surprisingly consistent fashion, an imminent eschaton. --Sineaste (talk) 07:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

You keep mixing interpretation with the parallelisms of symbols between the prophecies. I have been trying to steer clear of any interpretation and simply deal with obvious literary parallels. Three propecies end with the setting up of God's kingdom (regardless what that means or when it happens) and chapter 8 ends with the cryptic "cleansing of the sanctuary". It is a question of interpretation if the cleansing of the sanctuary associated with the setting up of God's kingdom or something else. Given the symmetry of the literary structure of Daniel, it seems that all four prophecies should end at the same time. Christian Skeptic (talk) 19:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Astounding Devistation?

The prophecy of Daniel 8 talks about the world conquest by Media-Persia under Cyrus, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, etc as great. Which all historians recognize.

The Ram with two horns (Media-Persia, vs 20) did as he pleased and became great. vs. 3-4

It then calls the world conquest by Greece under Alexander the Great as very great. Which all historians recognize.

The unihorn Goat (Greece, vs 21) became very great. vs. 5 & 8

And it then calls the conquest growth and rule of the little horn as resulting in astounding devastation.

The Small Horn Grew (became very strong, vs 24) until it reached the host of the heavens. It set itself up to be as great as the Prince of the host (the Prince of princes, vs 25). He will cause astounding devastation. vs. 9, 10, 25

And this little horn is supposed to be the wimp Antiochus E. who dared not even step out of a circle drawn in the sand by a Roman general?!?!? Sure he sacrileged the temple, but the Babylonians and Romans did even worse by destroying it. All A.E. could do is kill a pig. Big whoop!

It makes much more sense historically to see that Media-Persia was exceeded in power and extent by Greece who was in turn exceeded in power and extent by Rome. The little horn did not come out of one of the four horns of Greece, but out of one of the four winds (see vs. 8 and 9). --Christian Skeptic (talk) 20:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you read first and second Maccabees to see if later Judaism regarded Antiochus’ actions as ‘big whoop’. Or read the story here: [5] This flippant attitude towards a historical incident of religious suppression and persecution in which thousands lost their lives is highly insulting and borders on anti-Semitism. I’m sure that this is not what you intended but if you read later Jewish and Christian observations on this period you will realise that it was not a minor blip in the history of Judaism.

So the complete destruction of the temple by the Babylonians and the Romans are just minor blips compared to the fool A.E. You have never read of the thousands upon thousand of Jewish people persecuted, crucified and killed by the Babylonians and Romans? By comparison A.E was a pimple in the history of the world. Christian Skeptic (talk) 20:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Despite your illogical conclusions no-one is suggesting that Antiochus was an Alexander or an Augustus. He did, however, take command of one of the largest empires of his day and have an impact on the Jewish nation that has become permanently etched on its collective consciousness. It was sufficiently important to the Jews for a new festival to be instituted, observed to this day, to mark the rededication of the temple. It was also sufficiently important for a prominent church father to count the crisis under Antiochus as one of the four "captivities" of the Jews - the others being the Egyptian and Babylonian exiles and the (then current) subservience to Rome (John Chrysostom, Against the Jews, Homily V). --Sineaste (talk) 06:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In terms of his actions towards Judaism and the Jerusalem temple services Antiochus did far more damage than Persia, Alexander, or any previous Syrian or Ptolemaic king. While his military exploits do not compare to those of his father, Antiochus III, he was nonetheless the only Seleucid king who successfully invaded Egypt. From the perspective of a Jew living in either Egypt or Palestine the description of the little horn in Daniel 8 would fit Antiochus perfectly. But don't take my word for it - read some of the parallel verses in chapter 11 where the incident you mention with Rome (ships of the western coastlands) is clearly referred to (according to most commentators):

Both the Babylonians and Romans invaded Palestine and Egypt. The Romans scared A.E out of Egypt without even a fight! Wow, what a mighty power!!!! Christian Skeptic (talk) 20:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

If you actually read the text of Daniel instead of reading into it you will not find any indication that the wicked king described in chapters seven to 11 is militarily superior to Cyrus or Alexander. His attack on the "prince of princes" is clearly elaborated as an assault against the temple and Jewish religion, the focus is on the destruction ("astounding devastation")that he wrecks against Judaism, and it states very clearly in chapter 11 that he "looses heart" when opposed by [Roman] envoys and does not complete his second invasion of Egypt. In the larger context of the book Antiochus is part of the period of the diodochi characterised by mixed iron and clay in chapter two (ie "a divided kingdom" - "partly strong and partly brittle"), by the period of many kings (the ten horns of the 4th beast) in chapter seven, the divided kingdom (four horns) of chapter eight, and the numerous kings of north and south in chapter 11. He is never represented as a separate beast or kingdom that is more powerful than Babylon, Medo-Persia, or Greece. His arrogance and destructive activity is noteworthy primarily because it is directed against the "holy people" and the Jerusalem temple. --Sineaste (talk) 06:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

29 At the appointed time he will invade the South again, but this time the outcome will be different from what it was before. 30 Ships of the western coastlands will oppose him, and he will lose heart. Then he will turn back and vent his fury against the holy covenant. He will return and show favour to those who forsake the holy covenant. 31 His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation. 32 With flattery he will corrupt those who have violated the covenant, but the people who know their God will firmly resist him.

This attack on the temple and Jewish religion (the covenant) is identical to that described in more hyperbolic terms in chapter eight – although chapter eight also specifically mentions the taking away of the daily sacrifice, and attacks on the sanctuary and loyal Jews like chapter eleven. This movement from broader symbolism to increasingly specific detail is obvious to anyone who follows through the sequence of visions in Daniel. Chapters eight and eleven are the only ones to identify specific kingdoms (apart from the “head of gold” in chapter two) and because chapter 11 includes the most historical detail it should logically be used as the primary guide to the interpretation of the other chapters.

One thing you have to ask yourself is: if the parallels between the vision of chapter eight and the other visions have been "recognized for millennia" why is it that all of the leading Jewish and Christian commentators through the centuries applied this vision to Antiochus Epiphanes? Why don’t Josephus and Hippolytus and Jerome and Calvin suggest that the little horn is Rome if it is so obvious that it represents a greater power than Alexander? Part of the answer is surely that the broader symbolism of chapters two and seven (and to a certain extent nine) allowed a reapplication of these chapters to later Roman times but the specificity of chapter eight (where the little horn clearly originates from the divisions of the Greek empire – horns grow on goats not winds) makes this identification impossible to all but the most blinkered commentators. --Sineaste (talk) 06:17, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Again you are focusing on interpretations while I'm just looking at literary parallels. Just because some early theologians interpreted some of this as A.E. that does not mean that that is what was truly meant. Jesus said in John 14:29 "I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe." In other words, a prophecy is understood when or after something prophesied about happens. In a shallow way, A.E. seems to fulfill some parts of the prophecies and yet totally skips large sections of the text. But over the centuries and millenia, as history has unfolded, a much better fulfillment has become known. This latter interpretation of the prophecies, following Jesus' explanation of how prophecies are understood, takes ALL the words and phrases of the prophecies and shows how the entire text has been fulfilled.

I have not been discussing what I believe to be a better, more satisfying, and more complete interpretation of the prophecies. There just isn't room in these discussions to do so. I've just been talking about the literary parallels between the prophecies. The literary style or structure of the prophecies should help in clarifying, in understanding, and interpreting the prophecies. If the literary structure doesn't seem to fit some interpretation, then it is the interpretation that is flawed not the literary structure. It doesn't matter how many early fathers held to this or that interpretation. If they have not seen enough history to know that a better fulfillment is coming, their interpretation is likely to be flawed. That is just what has happened concerning A.E. Christian Skeptic (talk) 20:54, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Belshazzar & Ferdinand Hitzig for your information

Dear all,

In case of someone would like to add about Belchazzar this information :

Belshazzar, declared one commentator named Ferdinand Hitzig in 1850, was "obviously a figment of the Jewish writer's imagination".(Ferdinand Hitzig, Das Buch Daniel, Leipzig: Weidman, 1850, p. 75, as quoted by Millard, "Daniel and Belshazzar in History," Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1985, pp. 74-75)

Please be informed, that is a hoax. In fact, Ferdinand Hitzig has never said it or written it. His book is available (old german) on Books.google. and it is not even a misquote, it is a creation. There is nowhere in the book something related to Baltasar with « Schreiber », « Schriftsteller », « jüdisch », « Erfindung »…

Nothing else page 74-76 which could give the idea that Belschazzar is a fiction. I guess that's an hoax invented by Alan Millard who doesn't even know German. Why ? I don't know.

Best regards --Sherlock1310 (talk) 09:25, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Before we get too excited about Millard's dishonesty, let's see the full quote from Millard please. I wouldn't like to think that Millard is being misrepresented, however much Hitzig is being misquoted. --Taiwan boi (talk) 07:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

You are totaly right. But notice that is NOT a misquote (to quote inaccurately) but a creation, an invention, a false reference which give impression that Ferdinand Hitzig has denied historicty of Belschazzar . There is nothing like that in Das Buch Daniel. If someone can provide the real quote of the Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 1985, pp74-75, it would be very helpful. Anyway, I don't see into Alan Millard's CV that he studied Old German and was able to read it easily. But I can see (on wikipedia) that he believes in bible innerancy like fundamentalist. I was one of them during 27 years of my existence. This strategy to satirize honest critics of the bible (who had finally reason) is common and an old strategy to avoid quicky their main arguments. But, calm down, calm down. I don't know personaly Alan Millard and I wouldn't go further. It is a just my point a view. What can I say it is just that : it is an hoax. Shame on the parrots ! >8-D. Cheers. --Sherlock1310 (talk) 08:27, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I can certainly confirm it's not a misquote, since Millard did not even claim to be quoting Hitzig. I have looked up Millard's article in my copy of BAR. Here is the relevant section:

'Belshazzar, declared one commentator named Ferdinand Hitzig in 1850, was obviously a figment of the Jewish writer’s imagination.†

†Ferdinand Hitzig, Das Buch Daniel (Leipzig: Weidman, 1850), p. 75.'

BAR 11:03 (May/June 1985). Biblical Archaeology Society.

So Millard did not claim to be quoting Hitzig. The reference you originally gave has misrepresented Millard as providing a quote of Hitzig, when he did no such thing. As for Hitzig's work, I can't read German but I found at least 12 references to 'Baltasar' in the work cited by Millard. I don't know what they say, so I can't verify or falsify his citation of Hitizig, but I would like to see someone else do the proper work before simply accusing Millard of inventing a hoax. He may have the page wrong, or the edition wrong (I'm looking through BAR to see if there are any corrections made to his article), or perhaps he did simply make it up, but I'd like to see all the relevant evidence first. Of course, bearing in mind that no reference to Millard's statement is made in the entire article here, this is all pretty redundant anyway. --Taiwan boi (talk) 17:38, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you Taiwan boi. In any case, there is nothing into Ferdinand Hitzig's work something which say that. The edition of the book (Leipzig: Weidman, 1850), is the only one - it is this one on Google books - Of course, you have to trust german native speakers who are able to tell you that's an hoax. About Alan Millard, I use only the reference given on many websites and who wrote the article, who's speaking ? I don't know. Maybe, it is not an hoax of Alan Millard but of BAR ? Let me know, please. But don't accuse me of dishonesty.Or blaim Everette Hatcher & BAR for giving bad references ! Thanks --Sherlock1310 (talk) 10:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

If you have both definitely decided that this information, one way or another, does not belong in this article, could you carry any further discussion to your respective talk pages? Thanks. Student7 (talk) 12:52, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

The time prophecy was written

How about a separate section on dating the prophecy, with subsections for each particular? Not necessarily "equal" weight either to all arguments. Student7 (talk) 13:04, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Bear in mind that this is an extremely controversial and disputed subject where policy asks us to give as even-handed and neutral an appearance as humanly possible; a statement like 'not necessarily "equal" weight either to all arguments' does not seem to bode well. In other words, it suggests that you may be interested in "pushing" one POV over another. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 13:27, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

Description and interpretation

Removed the following comment from the description of the vision in chapter 8.

This most likely speaks of Alexander the Great and his empire being divided amongst four of his generals.

While it might be correct it is interpretation and not part of the description of the vision. --spin (talk) 14:59, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

---

Once again the same interpretation of chapter 8 has been removed. If you need to give an interpretation of this vision, you should do so on the page dedicated for its interpretation, Daniel's Vision of Chapter 8. --spin (talk) 09:50, 18 December 2008 (UTC)