The Claim That Daniel Violates The Supposed Nature Of Biblical Prophecy

This is a classic straw man argument. The critics set up a straw man by defining prophecy and then seek to discredit Daniel because it does not fit their own definition.

One critic has written that “prophecy in the Bible is characterized by an absence of specific predictions. It is forthtelling and not foretelling.” The prophecy in Daniel is primarily of the latter variety.

What about Jesus? He made specific prophecies regarding his death, the manner of his death, the perpetrators of his death, his betrayal, the death of Peter, the denial by Peter, his resurrection, and the destruction of Jerusalem within a generation.

“And now I [Jesus] have told you before it come to pass, that, when it come to pass, you might believe.” (John 14:29)

What do liberals do with the host of predictions found in both the Old and New Testaments? They usually call in an EDITOR to deal with the problem. That is, they say that someone came along after the book was written and after certain events had occurred and changed the book to make it look like those events had been predicted long ago. (Those magical and convenient late editors solve a variety of problems for the liberals.)

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The Claim That Events In Daniel Are Improbable Or Absurd

In Daniel 4:33 we read the account of Nebuchadnezzar’s illness in which he roamed the fields thinking himself to be an ox.

Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird.

Critics claim that the sickness of Nebuchadnezzar is too incredible to be true.

Too incredible to be true? These critics need to pull their heads out of their books and watch a little daytime TV. If the talk shows on TV today do nothing else, they prove that nothing is too strange to be true. A man who thinks he is a cow? It wouldn’t even make the first cut on the Sally Jesse Raphael Show.

Not only is it NOT that incredible, but is has a name: boanthropy.

R. K. Harrison speaks of an encounter he had with such a person in a British mental hospital. He ate only vegetation and drank only water. His health was excellent and the only physical abnormality noticed was the length and coarseness of his hair and the thickened condition of his nails.

No Babylonian record has been found that mentions any activity by Nebuchadnezzar during the period 582 to 575.

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Darius The Mede

In Daniel 5:30–31 we read

That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.

One critic has written that “the references to Darius the Mede in the book of Daniel have long been recognized as providing the most serious historical problem in the book.”

The late-date proponents claim that:

The author of Daniel believed that a Median kingdom, under Darius, conquered Babylon and subsequently gave way to the Persian empire under Cyrus. It is known that Babylon fell directly to Cyrus and the Persians.

Darius the Mede never actually existed but was a confused reflection of a later Persian ruler, Darius I (Hystaspes).

The four kingdoms in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7 are thus Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece.

Five reasons why this view is wrong:

(1) The book of Daniel never claims that Darius was the king of Media but only that he was of Median descent. To say that Napoleon was a Corsican does not mean that Napoleon was the king of Corsica.

(2) The author of Daniel says that Darius and Cyrus had different ancestries (Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede), NOT that they ruled separate kingdoms.

(3) Daniel 6:12 says

So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: “Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or man except to you, O king, would be thrown into the lions' den?” The king answered, “The decree stands – in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.”

If Darius ruled an independent kingdom of Media then why was he subject to the law of the Persians?

(4) Daniel’s interpretation of the handwriting on the wall in chapter 5 indicates that the Persians would be the main element of the empire that succeeded the Babylonians. The author clearly says that Babylon would be conquered not by the Medes alone but by the Medes and the Persians with the Persians playing the greater role.

(5) The vision in chapter 8 depicts a combined Medo-Persian empire as a single ram with two horns. The horn depicting Persia comes up last, but BEFORE the ram sets out to conquer.

Just because the name ‘Darius the Mede’ has not been found in any ancient inscriptions does not mean that he did not exist.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

The critics made similar claims about Belshazzar and Sargon and archaeology later proved them wrong.

Who then was Darius? We will look at three proposed answers.

(1) The author of Daniel was mistaken about the chronology of Persian rulers, and Darius the Mede was actually Darius I, a later ruler of Persia. This view must be rejected for the following reasons:

Daniel calls Darius a Mede, and Darius I was a Persian.

Daniel says that Darius the Mede was 62 when he began to rule. Darius I was in his 20’s when he began to rule.

Daniel 9:1 says that Darius the Mede “was MADE king” implying that he was appointed king over Babylon by some higher authority (Cyrus). Darius I, however, succeeded to the throne after the death of Cambyses.

(2) Darius the Mede was another name for Cyrus the Persian. (Many people hold this view. I’m not sure what its allure is.) This view must be rejected for the following reason.

Daniel 6:28 says that “Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” This seems like an odd statement if the two men were the same person!

(3) Darius the Mede was an early governor of Babylon under Cyrus.

The references to Darius in Daniel do not say that he ruled the Persian empire – only that he took control of the conquered Chaldean empire.

It was a well known practice of Cyrus to appoint Medes to high positions in order to foster goodwill and loyalty.

Critics claim that Darius the Mede had too much authority to have been just a governor. Read Daniel 6:25–26.

Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations and men of every language throughout the land: “May you prosper greatly! I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end.”

Yet the phrase “throughout the land” simply means all of the land over which he had been given authority. Remember that his land consisted of people from many different countries – such as Daniel and his friends.

Which governor was he? One commentator has written:

Gubaru the Governor of Babylon fits the Biblical description of Darius the Mede so remarkably that the writer believes he will be recognized in due time as the monarch who played such an important role in the life of Daniel and the fall of Babylon. … We believe that this identification is the only one which satisfactorily harmonizes the various lines of evidence which we find in the book of Daniel and in the contemporary cuneiform records.

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The Claim Of Historical Errors In Daniel Regarding Belshazzar

Daniel states that Belshazzar was king of Babylon. In addition, the book seems to indicate that Belshazzar was the Chaldean last king and that Nebuchadnezzar was his father.

In fact, Nabonidus was the last king and Belshazzar was his son.

QUESTION 1: Why is Nebuchadnezzar called the father of Belshazzar four times in Daniel 5 and Belshazzar is called the son of Nebuchadnezzar once in that chapter?

The Hebrew use of “father” and “son” can simply mean “ancestor” and “descendent.” It is possible that a genetic relationship existed between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. If Nabonidus married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar in order to legitimize his rule then his son by her would be the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar.

This view is strengthened by the fact that Nabonidus named one of his sons Nebuchadnezzar.

Also, an earlier king (Neriglissar) is known to have married a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar.

A second explanation is that “by ancient usage the term son often referred to a successor in the same office whether or not there was a blood relationship.”

This may have been the usage in Jeremiah 27:7.

All the nations shall serve him [Nebuchadnezzar] and his son and his grandson, until the time of his own land comes; then many nations and great kings shall make him their slave.

QUESTION 2: Why does Daniel say that Belshazzar was king of Babylon?

Archaeology has shown that Nabonidus took up residence at Teman in North Arabia and left his son Belshazzar in charge of the northern frontier of the Babylonian empire. Thus, he became the de facto king of Babylon.

One commentator has written:

Belshazzar then, technically occupied a position subordinate to that of Nabonidus. Nevertheless, since he was the man in regal status with whom the Jews had to do, Daniel calls him king. This cannot justly be charged as an inaccuracy.

Further, tablets dating from 543 B.C. have been found that implies that Belshazzar and his father were on equal footing. Daniel apparently knew what he was talking about!

The radical critics argue that Belshazzar’s authority to appoint anyone he pleased as third ruler in the kingdom in Daniel 5 indicates that he was an absolute ruler, not a sub-king.

Just the opposite is true, however!

Why did Belshazzar only promise the third and not the second ruler? Because he was the second and his father was the first!

How would a Jew writing 400 years later have known this?

Belshazzar was long thought to have never existed, until his name was found by archaeologists. (Eventually, they will learn not to bet against the Bible!)

Daniel mentions him, as does the apocryphal book of Baruch, which many scholar believe was written in the fourth century B.C. How did the author of Baruch know about Belshazzar if Daniel had not yet been written. This further points to an early date for the book of Daniel.

One modern scholar has written:

We shall presumably never know how our author learned that the new Babylon was the creation of Nebuchadnezzar, as the excavations have proved, and that Belshazzar was functioning as king when Cyrus took Babylon in 538.

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The Claim That Daniel’s Use Of The Term ‘Chaldeans’ Implies A Late Date

The author of Daniel uses the word ‘Chaldeans’ to denote a special class of wise men. However, the word originally had a broader meaning and referred to a particular group of tribes. The late-date proponents claim that only the original meaning was in use during the sixth century.

Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, was a Chaldean. Although ‘Chaldean’ and ‘Babylonian’ are not synonyms, they are sometimes treated that way since many Babylonian rulers were Chaldean. Jeremiah described Nebuchadnezzar’s army as the army of the Chaldeans. The term gradually came to mean a privileged class and then a special class of wise men. The question we must consider is when did this change occur?

The claim that a single word can help date a document is not without merit. For example, if you read an English passage containing the word ‘sputnik’ you would be able to date it after 1957 because it was not until that time that the word passed into the English language. Of course, without this additional knowledge, the word would be of no help at all.

Daniel uses the term “Chaldean” in BOTH ways – which destroys the liberal theory.

In Daniel 1:4 we see the “language of the Chaldeans,” which is clearly an ethnic use of the term.

In Daniel 2, 4, and 5 we see another use where the term is used to describe master astrologers.

Daniel was aware that “Chaldean” was an ethnic term for the race of Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel 5:30 refers to Belshazzar as the king of the Chaldeans. Daniel 3:8 seems to be an ethnic use of the term despite the poor NIV translation.

Both uses of the term were known when Daniel was written.

Herodotus who wrote The Histories around 450 B.C. implied that the term had been used to denote a class of wise men as far back as the time of Cyrus.

One scholar has written: “It is hard to prove a negative. Our knowledge of the Babylonian literature of the time of Daniel is not so complete that we can safely affirm that ‘Chaldean’ never meant the caste of wise men in his time.”

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The Claim That Daniel Is Mistaken About The Date Of Nebuchadnezzar’s Siege Of Jerusalem

The Claim That Daniel Is Mistaken About The Date Of Nebuchadnezzar’s Siege Of Jerusalem

Such a mistake would indicate a lack of knowledge about the history of the time, and thus would support a late date. But was Daniel mistaken?

Daniel 1:1-3 states:

1 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God; and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god. 3 Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility.

Problems with these verses:

The Babylonian Chronicle makes no reference to an action by Nebuchadnezzar in Judah during the third year of Jehoiakim or to a siege of Jerusalem.

According to Jeremiah 46:2, the battle that opened the way for a Babylonian invasion of Judah did not occur until the fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign, whereas Daniel 1:1 says that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim’s reign.

The questions we need to consider:

When did Nebuchadnezzar arrive at Jerusalem and besiege it?

When did he defeat Jerusalem?

When did he carry away captives and sacred vessels?

II Kings and II Chronicles record three separate occasions when Nebuchadnezzar carried away people and articles from the temple.

II Kings 23:36 – 24:5 and II Chronicles 36:5–8

Jehoiakim gave allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar for three years and then rebelled. Nebuchadnezzar defeats his forces and takes Jehoiakim back in chains along with some items from the temple.

II Kings 24:8–16 and II Chronicles 36:9–10

Jehoiachin succeeds Jehoiakim and reigns for three months while the servants of Nebuchadnezzar besiege Jerusalem. Again the siege is successful and Jehoiachin and much of the nobility is deported to Babylon.

II Kings 24:17 – 25:21 and II Chronicles 36:11–20

Zedekiah rules for a few years and then rebels against Nebuchadnezzar. In the ninth year of his reign, Nebuchadnezzar again besieges Jerusalem, which falls in the eleventh year of his reign (586 B.C.). The city was destroyed and most of the leading men were killed. The others were deported and all articles from the temple were taken.

Daniel 1:1–4 is a brief summary of these three events and is not intended to provide all of the details.

There are some additional points to consider:

Jerusalem was besieged – not captured.

One critic has written that “Daniel begins with a glaring historical error, for Nebuchadnezzar did not take Jerusalem in the third year of King Jehoiakim.”

But Daniel never states that Jerusalem was captured at the time – only besieged.

In the middle of his Palestinian campaign, Nebuchadnezzar received news of his father’s death. He rushed back to Babylon to assume the throne and apparently abandoned the siege against Jerusalem before he captured the city.

Babylon used a different dating system.

Daniel 1:1 seems to be in conflict with Jeremiah 25:1 regarding the year of Jehoiakim’s reign when Nebuchadnezzar invaded Palestine.

Jeremiah (writing in Jerusalem) used a different dating system than did Daniel (writing in Babylon).

It was different in two respects - either one of which could explain the seeming discrepancy.

The Babylonian calendar began each year in the spring and the Jewish calendar began each year in autumn. The Babylonian third year thus overlapped the Judean fourth year by about six months.

In Babylon, the year in which a king began to reign was called ‘the year of accession to the kingdom,’ which was followed by the first, second, and subsequent years of his rule. Thus, a Babylonian king’s third year of reign would correspond to the actual fourth year of his reign. Daniel may have used the Babylonian system in verse 1.

If this latter theory is correct it again points to an early date for the book. How could a Jew writing 400 years later know about the Babylonian system of dating?

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The Claim That Jesus Ben Sirach’s Failure To Mention Daniel Implies A Late Date

Jesus ben Sirach wrote Ecclesiasticus between 200 and 170 B.C. At the end of the book, he reviews Israel’s history, mentioning some of the men that God used to lead Israel. Daniel is not on the list.

Further, at one point he states that never had their been born a man like Joseph. (Daniel is similar in many respects to Joseph.)

Daniel and Joseph both were exiles, both showed allegiance to God, both were falsely accused, both were vindicated, both interpreted dreams, both became confidants to the king, and both were given a high government position by the king.

The radical critics claim that this omission supports the late-date view.

Daniel was not the only Old Testament notable that was omitted from this list. Jonah, Mordecai, Ezra, and Job were also left off. (No radical critic uses the omission of Ezra to deny the authenticity of his book.)

One commentator has noted:

It is a remarkable fact that he does not pay any regard to the great men who had exercised their functions outside the bounds of the land of Israel, such as Jonah at Ninevah, Daniel in Babylon, and Mordecai in Persia. In speaking of Abraham, he does not refer to his coming out of Ur of the Chaldees, nor his visit to Egypt. In speaking of Jacob, Joseph, and Aaron, he says nothing of the land of Egypt; nor does he intimate that Moses had ever been in Egypt.

His views might be characterized as Sadducean and nationalistic. When he gives an account of the great men of his nation, he selects … those who had most distinguished themselves according to his ideas of what constituted greatness.

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The Claim That Daniel’s Position In The Jewish Scriptures Implies A Late Date

The Old Testament books in the Hebrew Bible are divided into three sections.

• The Law (Books of Moses)
• The Prophets (Joshua, Judges, 1 & 2 Samuel, 1 & 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the 12 minor prophets)
• The Writings (Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Solomon, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, Esther, DANIEL, Ezra, Nehemiah, 1 & 2 Chronicles) - called the Hagiographa (Holy Writings)

Claim of Radical Critics: Since Daniel is not found in the second division (the Prophets) but in the third division (the Writings), it follows that Daniel was a very late addition to the Jewish canon.

It is a mistake to assume that the books in the third division were written later than the books in the second division. In fact, Job, Ruth, Proverbs, and many of the Psalms were written before many of the prophetical books.

Josephus says that no books were added to the canon after 424 B.C. – the death of Artaxerxes.

Jewish tradition says that Malachi was the last inspired book, which would mean that the second division was closed after the third.

The division is not based on the type of book but on the type of writer.

The books in the first section were written by Moses.

Those in the second section were written by men who had the prophetic office as well as the prophetic gift.

Those in the third section were written by those who had the prophetic gift but not the prophetic office – inspired men but not official prophets.

This explains why Ezekiel and Daniel, though contemporaries, are in different divisions.

But what do we mean when we say that Daniel was not officially a prophet?

Daniel does not introduce his book with his name, and he had no official position among the Jewish people.

He did not live among the exiles like Ezekiel did, but he lived at the court of Babylon, and he dealt with heathen kings rather than with the people of Israel.

Although he is called a prophet in the New Testament, that has more to do with his predictions than with any special prophetic office that he held. Note that David is called a prophet in Acts 2:30.

One who held the prophetic office served as a spiritual mediator between God and the Israelites. Daniel did not do this.

We can turn this argument around on the radical critics! Why was Daniel added to the canon at all if it was not written until 160 B.C.?

Listen to what R. D. Wilson has to say about this:

Now, the radical critics, without any direct evidence to support them, profess to believe that, into the midst of these sacred writings for which men readily died, a forged document of unknown authorship and (according to the critics) full of easily detected errors … was quietly admitted as a genuine and authentic writing of a prophet hitherto unknown to history. … They cannot believe in miracles and predictive prophecy … but they can believe that a lot of obstreperous and cantankerous Jews who through all their history from Jacob and Esau down to the present time have disagreed and quarreled about almost everything, or nothing, could have accepted, unanimously and without a murmur … a forged and fictitious document, untrue to the well remembered facts of their own experience and to the easily ascertained facts concerning their own past history and the history of the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, and Greeks of whom the author writes.

Paul reminds us in Romans 3:2 that the Jews were entrusted with the very words of God – and they took that responsibility very seriously. (I wish that we took it as seriously today.)

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The Use Of A Two–Horned Ram To Symbolize Medo–Persia Supports An Early Date

After Alexander the Great visited Egypt, he was forever depicted on coins with his head adorned with the ram’s horns of Amen-Ra. A thousand years later, Mohammed called him ‘Alexander, the lord of the two horns.’

One commentator has written:

It is impossible to believe that the writer of Daniel could, in the face of universal attribution of the two ram’s horns to Alexander, represent Persia, the power he overthrew, as a two-horned ram (Daniel 8:3,20) unless he had written before the expedition into Egypt.

If you read an article that compared the Eisenhower administration to the days of Camelot, would you conclude that it had been written before or after the Kennedy administration?

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Josephus Supports The Early Date View

In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus relates a story which if true would prove that the book of Daniel existed during the time of Alexander the Great (330 B.C.).

Alexander was angry that the Jews would not give him their allegiance so he went to Jerusalem to punish them. Jewish priests met him and showed him in the book of Daniel how God had said that he would defeat the Persians. This pleased Alexander so much that he spared Jerusalem.

Josephus wrote:

The high priest then showed Alexander the passages in the prophecy of Daniel indicating that a Greek would destroy the empire of the Persians. Alexander, of course, accepted the prophecy as a reference to himself, and declared that God had ordained him to conquer Persia, which he proceeded to do. Furthermore, Alexander not only refused to execute any sanctions against Israel but bestowed upon that nation all kinds of favors and benefits, which was contrary to his usual custom.

History confirms that Alexander marched near Jerusalem on his way to Egypt and that he treated the Jews kindly. How else can we explain why Alexander spared Jerusalem the ravages that he inflicted upon Tyre and Sidon?

The consequence of this story is that it means that Daniel was known long prior to the year 334 B.C. and that even Alexander himself recognized that he was the one Daniel said would destroy the Medo-Persian power.

In addition, Josephus says that the Jewish canon was completed before 424 B.C. and that Daniel was a part of the canon. This was not just his opinion, but was the Jewish national position. He also speaks of many books that were rejected.

What do the critics say about all of this? They reject Josephus whenever he contradicts their naturalistic world view, but they enthusiastically accept him on virtually everything else. (They never give the Bible the benefit of the doubt. It is assumed to be wrong right from the start.)

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The First Book Of Maccabees Supports The Early Date View

In this book, Mattathias (the father of the Jewish patriot Maccabean brothers) encouraged his sons in their revolt against Antiochus Epiphanes by recalling how Daniel for his innocence was saved from the mouth of lions.

Mattathias died in 166 B.C. – a year before the date that critics say Daniel was written. The liberal critics say that Mattathias never said this!

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