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- October 22, 2021 at 10:20 pm#891403ProclaimerParticipant
The fall of the Roman Empire
Many think the Roman Empire fell in the year 395 AD. However, that was the western leg only. The east continued for another 11 centuries until the empire fell to the Ottomans.
October 22, 2021 at 10:31 pm#891408gadam123ParticipantSo you think that the Ancient Roman Empire is still existing today?
October 22, 2021 at 10:36 pm#891409ProclaimerParticipantLol. I’ll let you answer that for me.
October 23, 2021 at 10:50 pm#891420ProclaimerParticipantThe History of the Ottoman Empire (1299 – 1922)
The Ottoman Empire was founded circa 1299 by Osman I in northwestern Asia Minor just south of the Roman (Byzantine) capital Constantinople. The Ottomans crossed into Europe in 1352, moving their capital to Adrianople in 1369.
They conquered Constantinople in 1453, and then expanded deep into Europe, northern Africa, and the Middle East. The Ottoman territory increased exponentially under Sultan Selim I, who assumed the Caliphate in 1517 as the Ottomans defeated the Mamluks of Egypt and annexed western Arabia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Levant. Within the next few decades, much of the North African coast became part of the Ottoman realm.
October 23, 2021 at 11:15 pm#891421gadam123ParticipantIs the book of Daniel a prophetic book?
The first part of the book is simply a story about a man called Daniel. The story is full of cultural and historical errors. The second part is the history of the Antiochene crisis of Maccabees in the second century BCE. Jews did not see Daniel as a Prophet but as a visionary therefore they include it in their ‘writings’ and not in their ‘Prophets’ sections.
The prophecies in the Book of Daniel were history to the extent that the Book of Daniel was set during the Babylonian Exile and early Persian period but actually written after the supposed prophecies had occurred—approximately 167-165 BCE.
It is interesting to note that the book is historically inaccurate when it describes events and people of the exilic period, success of Darius the Mede a fictitious king etc. but the “prophecies” become increasingly accurate as they approach the time of writing.
Historical inaccuracies
Now such mistakes there seem to be, and not a few of them, in the pages of the Book of Daniel. One or two of them can perhaps be explained away by processes which would amply suffice to show that “yes” means “no,” or that “black” is a description of “white”; but each repetition of such processes leaves us more and more incredulous. If errors be treated as corruptions of the text, or as later interpolations, such arbitrary methods of treating the Book are practically an admission that, as it stands, it cannot be regarded as historical.
I. We are, for instance, met by what seems to be a remarkable error in the very first verse of the Book, which tells us that “In the third year of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, came Nebuchadnezzar”—as in later days he was incorrectly called—”King of Babylon, unto Jerusalem, and besieged it.”
It is easy to trace whence the error sprang. Its source lies in a book which is the latest in the whole Canon, and in many details difficult to reconcile with the Book of Kings—a book of which the Hebrew resembles that of Daniel—the Book of Chronicles. In 2 Chro 36: 6 we are told that Nebuchadnezzar came up against Jehoiakim, and “bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon”; and also—to which the author of Daniel directly refers—that he carried off some of the vessels of the House of God, to put them in the treasure-house of his god. In this passage it is not said that this occurred “in the third year of Jehoiakim,” who reigned eleven years; but in 2 Kings 24: 1 we are told that “in his days Nebuchadnezzar came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years.” The passage in Daniel looks like a confused reminiscence of the “three years” with “the third year of Jehoiakim.” The elder and better authority (the Book of Kings) is silent about any deportation having taken place in the reign of Jehoiakim, and so is the contemporary Prophet Jeremiah. But in any case it seems impossible that it should have taken place so early as the third year of Jehoiakim, for at that time he was a simple vassal of the King of Egypt. If this deportation took place in the reign of Jehoiakim, it would certainly be singular that Jeremiah, in enumerating three others, in the seventh, eighteenth, and twenty-third year of Nebuchadrezzar, should make no allusion to it. But it is hard to see how it could have taken place before Egypt had been defeated in the Battle of Carchemish, and that was not till b.c.e 597, the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Not only does Jeremiah make no mention of so remarkable a deportation as this, which as the earliest would have caused the deepest anguish, but, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer. xxxvi. 1), he writes a roll to threaten evils which are still future, and in the fifth year proclaims a fast in the hope that the imminent peril may even yet be averted (Jer. xxxvi. 6-10). It is only after the violent obstinacy of the king that the destructive advance of Nebuchadrezzar is finally prophesied (Jer. xxxvi. 29) as something which has not yet occurred.
II. Nor are the names in this first chapter free from difficulty. Daniel is called Belteshazzar, and the remark of the King of Babylon—”whose name was Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god”—certainly suggests that the first syllable is (as the Massorets assume) connected with the god Bel. But the name has nothing to do with Bel. No contemporary could have fallen into such an error;[98] still less a king who spoke Babylonian. Shadrach may be Shudur-aku, “command of Aku,” the moon-god; but Meshach is inexplicable; and Abed-nego is a strange corruption for the obvious and common Abed-nebo, “servant of Nebo.” Such a corruption could hardly have arisen till Nebo was practically forgotten. And what is the meaning of “the Melzar” (Dan. 1: 11)? The A.V. takes it to be a proper name; the R.V. renders it “the steward.” But the title is unique and obscure. Nor can anything be made of the name of Ashpenaz, the prince of the eunuchs, whom, in one manuscript, the LXX. call Abiesdri.
III. Similar difficulties and uncertainties meet us at every step. Thus, in the second chapter (2: 1), the dream of Nebuchadrezzar is fixed in the second year of his reign. This does not seem to be in accord with i. 3, 18, which says that Daniel and his three companions were kept under the care of the prince of the eunuchs for three years. Nothing, of course, is easier than to invent harmonistic hypotheses, such as that of Rashi, that “the second year of the reign of Nebuchadrezzar” has the wholly different meaning of “the second year after the destruction of the Temple”; or as that of Hengstenberg, followed by many modern apologists, that Nebuchadrezzar had previously been associated in the kingdom with Nabopolassar, and that this was the second year of his independent reign. Or, again, we may, with Ewald, read “the twelfth year.” But by these methods we are not taking the Book as it stands, but are supposing it to be a network of textual corruptions and conjectural combinations.
October 24, 2021 at 12:42 am#891424gadam123ParticipantContinued from previous post…..
IV. When we reach the fifth chapter, we are faced by a new king, Belshazzar, who is somewhat emphatically called the son of Nebuchadrezzar.
History knows of no such king. The prince of whom it does know was never king, and was a son, not of Nebuchadrezzar, but of the usurper Nabunaid; and between Nebuchadrezzar and Nabunaid there were three other kings.
There was a Belshazzar—Bel-sar-utsur, “Bel protect the prince”—and we possess a clay cylinder of his father Nabunaid, the last king of Babylon, praying the moon-god that “my son, the offspring of my heart, might honour his godhead, and not give himself to sin.” But if we follow Herodotus, this Belshazzar never came to the throne; and according to Berossus he was conquered in Borsippa. Xenophon, indeed, speaks of “an impious king” as being slain in Babylon; but this is only in an avowed romance which has not the smallest historic validity. Schrader conjectures that Nabunaid may have gone to take the field against Cyrus (who conquered and pardoned him, and allowed him to end his days as governor of Karamania), and that Belshazzar may have been killed in Babylon. These are mere hypotheses; as are those of Josephus, who identifies Belshazzar with Nabunaid (whom he calls Naboandelon); and of Babelon, who tries to make him the same as Maruduk-shar-utsur (as though Bel was the same as Maruduk), which is impossible, as this king reigned before Nabunaid. No contemporary writer could have fallen into the error either of calling Belshazzar “king”; or of insisting on his being “the son” of Nebuchadrezzar; or of representing him as Nebuchadrezzar’s successor. Nebuchadrezzar was succeeded by—
Evil-merodach circ. b.c.e 561 (Avil-marduk)
Nergal-sharezer 559 (Nergal-sar-utsur).
Lakhabbashi-marudu 555 (an infant).
(Laborosoarchod)
Nabunaid 554.Nabunaid reigned till about b.c.e 538, when Babylon was taken by Cyrus.
The conduct of Belshazzar in the great feast of this chapter is probably meant as an allusive contrast to the revels and impieties of Antiochus Epiphanes, especially in his infamous festival at the grove of Daphne.
V. “That night,” we are told, “Belshazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain.” It has always been supposed that this was an incident of the capture of Babylon by assault, in accordance with the story of Herodotus, repeated by so many subsequent writers. But on this point the inscriptions of Cyrus have revolutionised our knowledge. “There was no siege and capture of Babylon; the capital of the Babylonian Empire opened its gates to the general of Cyrus. Gobryas and his soldiers entered the city without fighting, and the daily services in the great temple of Bel-merodach suffered no interruption. Three months later Cyrus himself arrived, and made his peaceful entry into the new capital of his empire. We gather from the contract-tablets that even the ordinary business of the place had not been affected by the war. The siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus is really a reflection into the past of the actual sieges undergone by the city in the reigns of Darius, son of Hystaspes and Xerxes. It is clear, then, that the editor of the fifth chapter of the Book of Daniel could have been as little a contemporary of the events he professes to record as Herodotus. For both alike, the true history of the Babylonian Empire has been overclouded and foreshortened by the lapse of time. The three kings who reigned between Nebuchadrezzar and Nabunaid have been forgotten, and the last king of the Babylonian Empire has become the son of its founder.”
Snatching at the merest straws, those who try to vindicate the accuracy of the writer—although he makes Belshazzar a king, which he never was; and the son of Nebuchadrezzar, which is not the case; or his grandson, of which there is no tittle of evidence; and his successor, whereas four kings intervened;—think that they improve the case by urging that Daniel was made “the third ruler in the kingdom”—Nabunaid being the first, and Belshazzar being the second! Unhappily for their very precarious hypothesis, the translation “third ruler” appears to be entirely untenable. It means “one of a board of three.”
VI. In the sixth chapter we are again met by difficulty after difficulty.
Who, for instance, was Darius the Mede? We are told (5: 30, 31) that, on the night of his impious banquet, “Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans” was slain, “and Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.” We are also told that Daniel “prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian” (6: 28). But this Darius is not even noticed elsewhere. Cyrus was the conqueror of Babylon, and between b.c. 538-536 there is no room or possibility for a Median ruler.
The inference which we should naturally draw from these statements in the Book of Daniel, and which all readers have drawn, was that Babylon had been conquered by the Medes, and that only after the death of a Median king did Cyrus the Persian succeed.
But historic monuments and records entirely overthrow this supposition. Cyrus was the king of Babylon from the day that his troops entered it without a blow. He had conquered the Medes and suppressed their royalty. “The numerous contract-tables of the ordinary daily business transactions of Babylon, dated as they are month by month, and almost day by day from the reign of Nebuchadrezzar to that of Xerxes, prove that between Nabonidus and Cyrus there was no intermediate ruler.” The contemporary scribes and merchants of Babylon knew nothing of any King Belshazzar, and they knew even less of any King Darius the Mede. No contemporary writer could possibly have fallen into such an error.
And against this obvious conclusion, of what possible avail is it for Hengstenberg to quote a late Greek lexicographer (Harpocration, c.e 170?), who says that the coin “a daric” was named after a Darius earlier than the father of Xerxes?—or for others to identify this shadowy Darius the Mede with Astyages?—or with Cyaxares II. in the romance of Xenophon?—or to say that Darius the Mede is Gobryas (Ugbaru) of Gutium—a Persian, and not a king at all—who under no circumstances could have been called “the king” by a contemporary (6: 12; 9: 1), and whom, apparently for three months only, Cyrus made governor of Babylon? How could a contemporary governor have appointed “one hundred and twenty princes which should be over the whole kingdom,” when, even in the days of Darius Hystaspis, there were only twenty or twenty-three satrapies in the Persian Empire? And how could a mere provincial viceroy be approached by “all the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains,” to pass a decree that any one who for thirty days offered any prayer to God or man, except to him, should be cast into the den of lions? The fact that such a decree could only be made by a king is emphasised in the narrative itself (6: 12: comp. 3: 29). The supposed analogies offered by Professor Fuller and others in favour of a decree so absurdly impossible—except in the admitted licence and for the high moral purpose of a Jewish Haggada—are to the last degree futile. In any ordinary criticism they would be set down as idle special pleading. Yet this is only one of a multitude of wildly improbable incidents, which, from misunderstanding of the writer’s age and purpose, have been taken for sober history, though they receive from historical records and monuments no shadow of confirmation, and are in not a few instances directly opposed to all that we now know to be certain history. Even if it were conceivable that this hypothetic “Darius the Mede” was Gobryas, or Astyages, or Cyaxares, it is plain that the author of Daniel gives him a name and national designation which lead to mere confusion, and speaks of him in a way which would have been surely avoided by any contemporary.
“Darius the Mede,” says Professor Sayce, “is in fact a reflection into the past of Darius the son of Hystaspes, just as the siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus are a reflection into the past of its siege and capture by the same prince. The name of Darius and the story of the slaughter of the Chaldean king go together. They are alike derived from the unwritten history which, in the East of to-day, is still made by the people, and which blends together in a single picture the manifold events and personages of the past. It is a history which has no perspective, though it is based on actual facts; the accurate combinations of the chronologer have no meaning for it, and the events of a century are crowded into a few years. This is the kind of history which the Jewish mind in the age of the Talmud loved to adapt to moral and religious purposes. This kind of history then becomes as it were a parable, and under the name of Haggada serves to illustrate that teaching of the law.”
The favourable view given of the character of the imaginary Darius the Mede, and his regard for Daniel, may have been a confusion with the Jewish reminiscences of Darius, son of Hystaspes, who permitted the rebuilding of the Temple under Zerubbabel.
If we look for the source of the confusion, we see it perhaps in the prophecy of Isaiah (13: 17; 14: 6-22), that the Medes should be the destroyers of Babylon; or in that of Jeremiah—a prophet of whom the author had made a special study (Dan. 9: 2)—to the same effect (Jer. 56: 11-28); together with the tradition that a Darius—namely, the son of Hystaspes—had once conquered Babylon.
VII. But to make confusion worse confounded, if these chapters were meant for history, the problematic “Darius the Mede” is in Dan. 9: 1 called “the son of Ahasuerus.”
Now Ahasuerus (Achashverosh) is the same as Xerxes, and is the Persian name Khshyarsha; and Xerxes was the son, not the father, of Darius Hystaspis, who was a Persian, not a Mede. Before Darius Hystaspis could have been transformed into the son of his own son Xerxes, the reigns, not only of Darius, but also of Xerxes, must have long been past.
VIII. There is yet another historic sign that this Book did not originate till the Persian Empire had long ceased to exist. In 11: 2 the writer only knows of four kings of Persia. These are evidently Cyrus, Cambyses, Darius Hystaspis, and Xerxes—whom he describes as the richest of them. This king is destroyed by the kingdom of Grecia—an obvious confusion of popular tradition between the defeat inflicted on the Persians by the Republican Greeks in the days of Xerxes (b.c.e 480), and the overthrow of the Persian kingdom under Darius Codomannus by Alexander the Great (b.c.e 333)…….(taken from The Expositor’s Bible: The Book of Daniel Author: F. W. Farrar)
October 24, 2021 at 6:47 am#891426GeneBalthropParticipantADAM…….No Islam is not the Seventh Kingdom. The fifth of today isn’t even over yet, then there will be A Sixth which is the “one that “IS” mentioned in Rev 17.
Between the prophesy of Daniel 2, and Rev 17, there exists a count of Eight kingdoms , Seven of which are kingdoms controlled by Satan, including the Fifth Kingdom which we are now in, next comes the Sixth kingdom of Jesus Christ and the Saint’s, Satan is placed into the bottomless pit for a thousand years, at the end of that time period Satan is released and goes out into the earth a raises up the Seventh Babylonian type kingdom, a resurrected Babylonian kingdom of rule, then out of that kingdom comes ten kings which make up the eighth world ruling kingdom and only lasts a short time, then God Almighty Comes to this earth to rule himself and Jesus Christ, Turns his kingdom over to God the Father, and himself becomes subject to it also.
It’s as simple as that, wherever anyone places the Eight Kingdoms they must fit into that Frame work or they are simple not of the prophesy of Daniel 2, or Rev 17. These two prophesied verses work perfectly, if you understand that John was transported in time to the Day of the Coming Almighty God to this earth after the thousand year rule of Jesus ad the Saint’s.Why not try to make what you are saying fit that frame work, and see how it fits. If no matter what anyone says doesn’t fit that framework it cannot be right. Period.
peace and love to you and yours Adam…,…..gene
October 24, 2021 at 7:00 am#891427BereanParticipantGene
Satan is placed into the bottomless pit for a thousand years, at the end of that time period Satan is released and goes out into the earth a raises up the Seventh Babylonian type kingdom, a resurrected Babylonian kingdom of rule, ….
Me
…raises up the Seventh Babylonian type kingdom, a resurrected Babylonian kingdom of rule, ….
Gene, Where do You read That ?
In the Bible WE CAN read:
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
[8] And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
[9] And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.THAT IS NOT A KINGDOM, BUT
AN ATTEMPT OF THE DEVIL TO TRAIN THE NATIONS AGAINST THE SAINTS IN THE HOLY CITY DESCENDED FROM HEAVEN.
I AM WRONG?
October 24, 2021 at 11:52 am#891444ProclaimerParticipantIs the book of Daniel a prophetic book?
The first part of the book is simply a story about a man called Daniel. The story is full of cultural and historical errors.
What’s the biggest one in your opinion?
October 24, 2021 at 3:07 pm#891460gadam123ParticipantIt’s as simple as that, wherever anyone places the Eight Kingdoms they must fit into that Frame work or they are simple not of the prophesy of Daniel 2, or Rev 17. These two prophesied verses work perfectly, if you understand that John was transported in time to the Day of the Coming Almighty God to this earth after the thousand year rule of Jesus ad the Saint’s.
Why not try to make what you are saying fit that frame work, and see how it fits. If no matter what anyone says doesn’t fit that framework it cannot be right. Period.
Hi brother Gene, I only study these ancient texts with a critical view. So I don’t see any of those later kingdoms like the Ottoman the Islamic or the modern British rule or Communist rules etc fit into theses texts.
Dan 2 talks about four ancient kingdoms viz Babylon, Media, Persia and Greece as per the writer and Revelation 17 talks about first century Roman Empire. I don’t find any thing for the distant future in these two books. Rest are mere speculations by the Christianity.
Please relook into your theory of Transport into Lord’s Day timeline by the writer of Revelation. There is no Seventh or Eighth kingdom mentioned in Rev 20 as rightly stated by Berean in his reply to you. Please understand these texts properly.
Thank you………Adam
October 24, 2021 at 3:15 pm#891461gadam123Participantgadam: Is the book of Daniel a prophetic book?
The first part of the book is simply a story about a man called Daniel. The story is full of cultural and historical errors.
Proclaimer: What’s the biggest one in your opinion?
Please go through my full post for details on this. The biggest historical error can be anything as given below;
In the Fifth and sixth chapters of Daniel we are met by difficulty after difficulty…..
Who, for instance, was Darius the Mede? We are told (5: 30, 31) that, on the night of his impious banquet, “Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans” was slain, “and Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.” We are also told that Daniel “prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian” (6: 28). But this Darius is not even noticed elsewhere. Cyrus was the conqueror of Babylon, and between b.c.e 538-536 there is no room or possibility for a Median ruler.
The inference which we should naturally draw from these statements in the Book of Daniel, and which all readers have drawn, was that Babylon had been conquered by the Medes, and that only after the death of a Median king did Cyrus the Persian succeed.
But historic monuments and records entirely overthrow this supposition. Cyrus was the king of Babylon from the day that his troops entered it without a blow. He had conquered the Medes and suppressed their royalty. “The numerous contract-tables of the ordinary daily business transactions of Babylon, dated as they are month by month, and almost day by day from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar to that of Xerxes, prove that between Nabonidus and Cyrus there was no intermediate ruler.” The contemporary scribes and merchants of Babylon knew nothing of any King Belshazzar, and they knew even less of any King Darius the Mede. No contemporary writer could possibly have fallen into such an error.
October 24, 2021 at 9:25 pm#891467ProclaimerParticipantgadam suffers from bias.
He knows deep down what the text says about the Kingdom of Babylon been given to the Medes and Persians.
But ignorance is bliss as they say.
Lol. You can actually deceive yourself.
October 25, 2021 at 1:14 am#891484gadam123ParticipantHe knows deep down what the text says about the Kingdom of Babylon been given to the Medes and Persians.
In fact the text says it was divided between two kingdoms Media and Persia. So you take this as proof for your combined kingdom by ignoring the verses that talk about independent Median kingdom which I quoted in my earlier posts. Persia never was an inferior kingdom to Babylon, Media or Greece my friend. If you close your eyes to the texts it is your problem. The writer talks about the second kingdom as an inferior kingdom to the first and the third as a worldwide kingdom. So the scholars are wise enough to place Media in second place and Persia in the third place. Greece as the fourth which is detailed in Dan 11 which you want to avoid to imagine Rome as the fourth. No trace of your Rome is found in the entire book.
October 25, 2021 at 2:26 am#891486ProclaimerParticipantPay attention gadam. Daniel says the kingdom is given to the Medes and Persians. All that matters is they are considered the next metal. And the second beast is clearly the Medes and Persians. Then the single goat with two horns is as well.
If matters not that the Medes did this and the Persians that. Or that one was stronger than the other and then later the other was. All that history doesn’t change the statue, beasts, or goat.
Stop deceiving yourself. You need to talk to yourself about how you are deceiving yourself. Lol. You are funny.
October 25, 2021 at 3:16 am#891487gadam123ParticipantDan 5: 28 peres, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”
So I was only highlighting what this writer was narrating.
There is nothing here to deceive oneself. We are only debating on these ancient books which are historically unreliable as I have stated in my previous posts.
So you don’t want to consider the history?
October 25, 2021 at 3:45 am#891490GeneBalthropParticipantBerean…..Yes you are wrong brother, I have laid it all out for anyone who has eyes to see it clearly. You must realize John Was indeed transported to the Day of the coming of God the Father at the end of the Millennium rule of Jesus and the Saint’s and pick it Rev 17 from that timeline. or you or no one can ever get it right. That is what was meant by the words “here is the mind that has wisdom”. that’s the key that unlocks the whole thing from Dan 2. To Rev 17 to the return of God the Father , to the end . For those who have eyes to see it.
Berean please go to what I wrote on First love , and respond, no one has yet to respond to it, I wonder why?
peace and love to you and yours Berean………gene
October 25, 2021 at 4:28 am#891493BereanParticipantGene
At the moment, you are unable to understand the prophecy, because you do not follow correctly what the bible says. Answer my last question instead of passing judgment on me.
After the thousand years, it is not a question of a kingdom as I showed you: reread the passage in Revelation 20
And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
[8] And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
[9] And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
[10] And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.THERE IS NO QUESTION OF A SEVENTH KINGDOM AS YOU SAY.
BE HUMBLE AND ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU ARE DECEIVING.
October 25, 2021 at 5:36 am#891495gadam123ParticipantChronological and historical flaws of the book of Daniel
The presence of numerous chronological errors, such as the dates of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign, the succession of Belshazzar and the Darius the Mede figure, mistakes a 6th century author would not have made, indicate that the authors of the various Daniel narratives were weaving a tale of a past they were vaguely familiar with and that the tales are, “not to be understood as historical.” If the authors of Daniel had been writing in the 6th century BCE, these errors would not have happened making it more apparent that the book refers to the second century BCE. The book starts with a dating error, stating that the conflict that led to Daniel’s capture occurred, “In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it” (1:1), when in fact Jehoiakim’s third regnal year was 606 BCE and Nebuchadrezzar did not assume the Babylonian throne until 605 BCE. Furthermore, Nebuchadrezzar’s siege of Jerusalem occurred in 586 BCE, an even greater chronological disparity. In chapters 5, 7 and 8 we see references to King Belshazzar, called the son of King Nebuchadrezzar (5:2). While there was a Babylonian figure named Belshazzar he was not the son of Nebuchadrezzar and was not king, but a co-regent in Babylon when his father, “moved to the royal residence to Teiman”
Finally and most dramatically is the figure of Darius the Mede, who according to Daniel was the successor to Belshazzar. However no such figure can be found in the historical record. While the Median Kingdom certainly existed, it was not the successor to the Babylonian Empire. These dating errors make it quite
apparent that the author of Daniel was simply not a person writing in the 6th Century BCE, as such errors would not have been made by someone living at that time.October 25, 2021 at 10:37 am#891519ProclaimerParticipantSo you don’t want to consider the history?
I don’t mind discussing history. But I need you to admit that the Medes and the Persians were given the kingdom after the Babylonians. You have 3 witnesses in the Book of Daniel for this.
- The statue with the second metal signifying the Kingdom being given to the Medes and Persians;
- The two sided second beast where one side was raised up compared to the other.
- The goat with two horns, one larger than the other.
This discussion is based on the Book of Daniel. You don’t have to agree with Daniel, but you could at least be honest and agree with what he was saying regarding the Medes AND Persians. You don’t see language like the Babylonians and the Medes or the Persians and the Greeks do you.
When you decide to be honest about this, then I will be happier regarding your character and it might be suffient for me to have a fruitful discussion about the history too. But if you cannot acknowledge some basic facts about what Daniel says, then a new discussion with you is very likely to be a waste of time.
I prefer a scientific approach where the facts are discussed and points agreed to when they are established. It doesn’t bother me if you do not believe Daniel, but that you acknowledge what he is saying.
October 25, 2021 at 10:46 am#891521ProclaimerParticipantBerean please go to what I wrote on First love , and respond, no one has yet to respond to it, I wonder why?
Because a wise man will be thankful for a rebuke, but a fool will ignore it. I think people know that discussing anything with you is futile. You have never acknowledged when you were proven wrong and never acknowledged weaknesses in your own arguments. Why would people want to debate you on a new topic that you setup?
I simply rebuke you when I see fit. I personally don’t bother having a serious discussion with you because your responses are largely a joke.
Sorry to break that to you gene, but what I am saying is true.
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