[Faith-talk] {Spam?} Baffling Bible Questions Answered for Monday, May 9, 2016

[Ericka]

Quite interesting!

Ericka Short
"What is right is not always popular; what is popular is not always right."

 from my iPhone

> On May 9, 2016, at 2:37 PM, Paul Smith via Faith-talk <faith-talk at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Hello and greetings to you on a Monday or, for you in Australia and New Zealand, a good Tuesday.  I hope that your day is going well, by God's matchless grace and His providential care.
> 
> Before I give you the Baffling Bible questions answered for today, my apologies for not posting the quotes.  I simply woke up too late to do so, but hopefully tomorrow they will be posted.
> 
> Today we delve into the book of Daniel.  It's somewhat long, so let's begin.
> 
> 
> 
> Question:  Who wrote this book, and what themes and topics does it deal with?
> 
> Answer:  The book purports to have been written by Daniel, a Jewish nobleman who was taken to Babylon as an adolescent and advanced to high positions in the civil service of both the Babylonian and Persian empires.  The first six chapters of Daniel are biographical and relate incidents that demonstrate God's sovereignty despite his people's subjection to pagan powers.  The second six chapters are filled with visions and prophecies about the future.  These are intended to communicate to Israel that God in His sovereignty knows and controls the future and will establish the Jews to their homeland at history's end.  To demonstrate this theme of God's sovereign control, Daniel utters some of the most specific of the Old Testament predictions about the course of history.  These predictions were fulfilled so unmistakably that many critics have argued that the book itself must have been written in the second century B.C. rather than the fifth century B.C. setting of Daniel's story.
> 
> 
> 
> Daniel's Dates
> 
> Question:  Modern critics insist that there is proof that Daniel was written in the second century B.C. instead of the fifth century B.C.  If that's true, the book must be a fraud and can hardly be viewed as Scripture, which if correct shows the whole notion that the Bible is inspired by God to be wrong.
> 
> Answer:  There is no doubt that many believe the Book of Daniel is one of many religious writings dating from the second century, whose anonymous authors used the names of ancient heroes in their titles.  This view is reflected in an article in "Bible Review" (August 1989, p. 13), in which Marc Brettler writes:  "Clear linguistic and historical evidence suggests that Daniel was written in the second century B.C.E. (before the Common Era), yet the text itself implies it was written three centuries earlier.  The author of Daniel made this false claim that his book would become an instant, ancient classic, and he suggested."
> 
> The fact is, however, that "clear linguistic and historical evidence" does not suggest Daniel was written in the second century, and the notion that a newly created book could be foisted off on the Jews as an ancient work by Daniel is absurd.  The Jews had a fanatically high regard for Scripture.  Copyists followed strict rules to reduce the chance of even slight errors in transmission. Scholars debated the meaning of every phrase, and various interpretations were passed down from generation to generation.  The idea that anyone in the second century B.C. could successfully claim his book as a book of Scripture composed by Daniel three centuries earlier and have it accepted by the community of Jewish scholars borders on the bizarre and at best must be considered irrational.
> 
> But what about the historic and linguistic evidence cited by the critics? One line of reasons involves the description in Daniel 2, 7, 8, and 11 of the empires that succeeded Babylon, the Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires.  How could Daniel have so accurately traced the division of Alexander's empire under his four generals if the book was not written after all this happened? The believer's answer, of course, is that all predictive prophecy depends on the supernatural.  It is not at all surprising that God, who controls the future, knew the future course of empires and would reveal it ahead of time through His prophet.
> 
> Other so-called historical evidence comes in the form of alleged inaccuracies that a real Daniel would supposedly have corrected.  For instance, Daniel 1:1 says Nebudchadnezzar invaded Judah in the third year of Jehoiakim, while Jeremiah 46:2 places in the fourth year of Jehoiakim.  But recent understanding of New Eastern dating systems has shown that the dating system used in Judah was different from one used in Babylon, and that this supposed inaccuracy is, in fact, a most compelling argument for fifth-century authorship.  No Jew writing the Book of Daniel in the second century B.C. would have gone against Jeremiah 46:2 and dated the invasion using a Babylonian dating system three centuries out of date.  There are a host of similar objections and responses.  For instance, Belshazzar was long assumed to be apocryphal, because the Greek historian Herodotus, writing in 450 B.C., named Nabonidus as the last king of the Babylonian empire.  See, the critics shouted, Daniel is wrong.  Then came the discovery of cuneiform tablets which revealed that Belshazzar was the son of Nabonidus and had been made co-ruler with his father.  Suddenly, it seemed that Daniel, in writing about the Babylon of 540 B.C., knew more about the situation there than Herodotus who wrote ninety years later.  And, if the historian was in error about recent history, how could an unknown Jewish writer three hundred years later know about this lost fact of Belshazzar's co-regency?
> 
> As archeology has provided more and more information about the Babylonian-Persian period, detail after detail in Daniel's portrayal of the times, its customs, and even of individual personalities has been authenticated.  There are still historical problems.  But a clear pattern has been established:  When new information becomes available, it is Daniel, not the critics, who proves to be correct.
> 
> How about the linguistic arguments? These hinge primarily on the notion that words borrowed from the Greek language are found in Daniel and that therefore the book could not have been written before the Helenistic period initiated by Alexander about 330 B.C.  Here, too, research has provided interesting information.  Today only three words in the book are undoubtedly borrowed from Greek.  All are names of musical instruments, listed in Daniel 3:5, 10, 15.  Could these words appear in an authentic fifth century B.C. Babylonian or Persian document? Absolutely.  Eighth-century B.C. Assyrian inscriptions mention Greek captives taken to Mesopotamia.  The Assyrians and Babylonians were always interested in music.  Why shouldn't they have learned from these Greeks? Furthermore, the Greek Alcaeus of Lebos in the seventh century B.C. mentions his brother serving in the Babylonian army.  Neo-Babylonian tablets from the same century list supplies provided to Ionian (Greek) shipbuilders and musicians.  The argument that three music words from the Greek indicate a second-century date of the writing of Daniel is obviously incredible.  In fact, Daniel's writing contain at least fifteen Persian words that have to do with government and administration.  Daniel applies these words as they were used by the Persians themselves.  This supports the fifth-century date. Daniel's correct use of these words simply cannot be explained if the author was an unknown second-century writer unfamiliar with the details of Persian government three hundred years before his time.
> 
> It is amazing that, despite the host of evidence cited by conservative scholars, many people persist in holding the view that the Book of Daniel is a fraud perpetrated on the Jewish and Christian communities.  Daniel is, in fact, inspired Scripture, an authentic account of the man whose adventures and visions it records.  As Scripture, the prophecies of Daniel, many of which have proven accurate by the passage of time, must be given serious attention by anyone interested in the Bible's picture of the future of the earth.
> 
> And there you have this week's baffling Bible questions answered column, written by an unknown author.  Although a bit long, I hope that you enjoyed reading it.
> 
> And that will do for today.  Tomorrow we have an even longer article on the subject of clutter.  Until then may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Faith-talk mailing list
> Faith-talk at nfbnet.org
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/faith-talk_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for Faith-talk:
> http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/faith-talk_nfbnet.org/dotwriter1%40gmail.com