Dating of Daniel

[Ged]

There never would have been a late view had it not been for the latter chapters accurately describing events of the Greek era. The real issue has been, "is there such a thing as predictive prophecy?" Liberal Biblical critics think not, so they have to dream up ways of getting chapters 8-12 into the 2nd century.

Problem for the liberal critics is that Josephus shows Alexander (331 BC) getting exited about the book of Daniel. Now they have to dream up ways of saying Josephus had a tendency to add 'inventions' to his historical narrative.

2. your "dream up ways of getting chapters 8-12 into the 2nd century" is rhetorically laden and a misrepresentation of the methods of the generality of scholars who work on Daniel.

Ficino, if you think I have misrepresented you, could you tell me if you agree with Josephus that Daniel was written before 331 BC? If not, why do you prefer after 167 BC as the likely date Daniel was written?

"liberal" critics,
The Catholic Study Bible Second Edition writes in page 336 of the Reading Guide : We know that section 7-12 was composed during the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Syria in 168-164 BC.

Beowulf, same questions please.

[beowulf]

There never would have been a late view had it not been for the latter chapters accurately describing events of the Greek era. The real issue has been, "is there such a thing as predictive prophecy?" Liberal Biblical critics think not, so they have to dream up ways of getting chapters 8-12 into the 2nd century.

Problem for the liberal critics is that Josephus shows Alexander (331 BC) getting exited about the book of Daniel. Now they have to dream up ways of saying Josephus had a tendency to add 'inventions' to his historical narrative.

2. your "dream up ways of getting chapters 8-12 into the 2nd century" is rhetorically laden and a misrepresentation of the methods of the generality of scholars who work on Daniel.

Ficino, if you think I have misrepresented you, could you tell me if you agree with Josephus that Daniel was written before 331 BC? If not, why do you prefer after 167 BC as the likely date Daniel was written?

"liberal" critics,
The Catholic Study Bible Second Edition writes in page 336 of the Reading Guide : We know that section 7-12 was composed during the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Syria in 168-164 BC.

Beowulf, same questions please.

The Catholic Study Bible says : We know that section 7-12 was composed during the persecution of the Jews by Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Syria in 168-164 BC.
Josephus is nothing more than a traitor and not to be trusted.

[Ged]

DCHindley - the book to Alexander is probably his own invention.
Kris - Josephus could be relaying a "story" that was going around.
Semiopen - Josephus is undoubtedly simply relating a legend.
Beowulf - Josephus is nothing more than a traitor and not to be trusted.

Heey, scholarly consensus

[beowulf]

DCHindley - the book to Alexander is probably his own invention.
Kris - Josephus could be relaying a "story" that was going around.
Semiopen - Josephus is undoubtedly simply relating a legend.
Beowulf - Josephus is nothing more than a traitor and not to be trusted.

Heey, scholarly consensus

Daniel's is not even a Christian book because it is full of hateful inventions. Josephus was a Quisling and a man wilfully blind to important trends and events in first century Palestine .
This is what the Book is and when it was written:

"Of these works the most influential was the Book of Daniel, dating from early Hasmonean times, both because it found its way into the canon and because it became the prototype for many others. It uses historical examples, from Assyrian, Babylonian and Persian times, to whip up hatred against pagan imperialism in general, and Greek rule in particular, and it predicts the end of empire and the emergence of God’s kingdom, possibly under a heroic liberator, a Son of Man. The book vibrates with xenophobia and invitations to martyrdom."
page 121 A HISTORY OF THE JEWS, PAUL JOHNSON

[semiopen]

DCHindley - the book to Alexander is probably his own invention.
Kris - Josephus could be relaying a "story" that was going around.
Semiopen - Josephus is undoubtedly simply relating a legend.
Beowulf - Josephus is nothing more than a traitor and not to be trusted.

Heey, scholarly consensus

As the humblest of men, let me note that I am a layman.

DCH strikes me as being quite. knowledgeable.

A while back I gave from-

Judaism in the Greek Period, from the Rise of Alexander the Great to the Intervention of Rome (333-63 B.C.)

ADDITIONAL NOTE III Alexander the Great in Jewish Legend
Alexander appears in Jewish history as having made a visit to Jerusalem which is recorded by Josephus in Ant. XI. viii. 4-6. According to this account the conqueror went to Jerusalem after the capture of Gaza ( 332 B.C.) and was met by the High Priest Jaddua and a company of priests and a multitude of citizens. When Alexander saw the High Priest he reverenced God and saluted Jaddua, much to the surprise of his generals. Alexander explained that he had seen the High Priest in a dream clothed in the very same habit when he was at Dios in Macedonia and that he had given him a message promising him dominion over the Persians. According to the story, Alexander then entered the Temple and offered sacrifice to God under the High Priest's directions. Then follows a curious passage about the book of Daniel: 'And when the book of Daniel was showed him, wherein Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians (cf. Dan. 76, 83-8, 20-2 and 113-4) he supposed that himself was the person intended.' The conqueror was so highly pleased that he granted the Jews signal favours, which he extended also to the Jews of Babylonia and Media.

Alexander reading Daniel is quite possibly Josephus' embellishment of the legend. The original legend is almost undoubtedly false.

DCH and I are saying exactly the same thing. Kris and Beowulf also make quite reasonable observations.

Perhaps it is a little bit like the blind men and the elephant, but there are no contradictions between any of these statements.

[ficino]

I do not "work on Daniel" like the unnamed scholars to whom I paid respect above. I do not accept the historicity of the story about the book of Daniel in AJ 11.8.5. Since Daniel shows that the Greek empire will work abominations and will fall, there is no reason to suppose that Alexander would have been excited by that book. There is the problem of translation. Since Daniel had not yet been translated into Greek (if we imagine it existed in 331), how could Alexander know what was being told to him? We have to imagine that the high priest showed Alexander a text written in a foreign script and pointed to a few verses and told him he was foretold in it. Could be... but pretty weak, since it was obvious that the priest and his cohorts wanted to avoid seeing their city sacked. For all Alexander knew, they had hauled out any old manuscript and made the prophecy up.

If we accept this story on Josephus' authority, we are also bound to accept the historicity of Alexander's dream, the high priest's dream, etc. There were a lot of legends about Alexander floating around.

Shaye Cohen is one of the leading scholars on Josephus, a student of a professor of mine. A good intro to this part of the AJ is this article by Cohen: "Alexander the Great and Jaddus the High Priest According to Josephus," AJS Review, Vol. 7/8, (1982/1983), pp. 41-68. Cohen draws on a lot of earlier work as well as on his own analysis. A good job is done of showing how details and motifs within the narrative indicate that several sources have been stitched together. In particular, there is a lot of tension among the Jews over whether there can be a temple on Mt. Gerizim, and that's all suddenly dropped - when it's just an issue that Jaddus et al. should be asking Alexander to help resolve.

Ancient stories about famous people often are driven more by moralizing and rhetorical agenda than they are by scrupulous attention to verifying the factuality of each story. I "work on" ancient literature about Socrates. The same phenomena are at work there, driven either by polemical interests against Socratic/Platonic thought or by desire to present the man as a (divinely-guided) sage. Ged, you do not discuss these matters as a trained historian. If you're interested, there is a lot of fascinating stuff about ways to try to tackle sources, to weigh sources, to try to determine what is plausible.

I have already given reason why I don't believe that Daniel is early dated: its detailed descriptions tail off right after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Everything makes sense on the scholarly consensus. Many problems arise on your fundamentalist dating.

[Ged]

Alexander reading Daniel is quite possibly Josephus' embellishment of the legend.

Especially if you are trying hard not to believe it.

[Ged]

... how could Alexander know what was being told to him?

'Conquered most of the known world but could only communicate in Greek? Like I said to semiclosed; "you're trying hard not to believe it."

I have already given reason why I don't believe that Daniel is early dated: its detailed descriptions tail off right after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Sorry, but, no it doesn't.

[andrewcriddle]

I'm not sure if this counts as a middle view but some scholars have distinguished earlier and later material in Daniel. e.g. Daniel chapters 1-7 was written around 300-250 BCE with Daniel 7-12 written around 166 BCE.

Andrew Criddle

There is a lot of discussion on this. Probably goes without saying that there is a lot of stuff that is later. Earlier is debatable.

THE LITERARY STRUCTURE OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

David_Willoughby_Gooding

http://www.tyndalehouse.com/TynBul/Libr ... Daniel.pdf

I haven't read the entire link but I don't get the sense that 1-6 is much older than 8-12. (I notice in your post that you include 7 in both) The link argues that seven ties 1-6 and 8-12 together.

The precise divisions suggested into early and late material vary but I meant to say e.g. Daniel chapters 1-7 was written around 300-250 BCE with Daniel 8-12 written around 166 BCE. Sorry.

Andrew Criddle

[spin]

... how could Alexander know what was being told to him?

'Conquered most of the known world but could only communicate in Greek? Like I said to semiclosed; "you're trying hard not to believe it."

You are showing a resilience to reading texts objectively.

I have already given reason why I don't believe that Daniel is early dated: its detailed descriptions tail off right after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.

Sorry, but, no it doesn't.

Can you make a more useless comment? You supply specific reasons for your views, when you are challenging the status quo, for the position that ficino outlined is the scholarly consensus, if you could just bring youreself to get any scholary commentary on Daniel. So, stop making empty assertions and provide tangibleobjective reasoning for your views.