While there are several things that ultimately led to my deconversion, there was one thing in particular that kick-started it. In January or February of 2010, I was writing material for some upcoming classes at our church when I found some articles that claimed the Book of Daniel was a forgery, and therefore not inspired by God. I knew there were people who believed that, but this article claimed to lay out solid evidence supporting that claim. I was intrigued. I had always been led to believe that history and archaeology totally supported the Bible story, so I was very interested to hear what reasons people could possibly have for not believing the Bible was true. The articles made a huge impact on me.
The blogger Darwin’s Beagle has very graciously agreed to let me repost those articles here. The next series of posts will lay out an examination of the Book of Daniel in a chapter-by-chapter approach. Most of the information comes from the Anchor Bible Commentary on Daniel, but the basic facts presented in these articles can be found almost anywhere. In fact, when I first began researching the points made in these articles, I was shocked to find that there’s very little disagreement about most of this information, even among Christian scholars.
I hope that the next several posts will be helpful to you, as they were to me. The rest of this post comes from the introduction written by Darwin’s Beagle.
To me the important question is “does God exist?” How does one go about answering it? Gods by definition, if they do exist, exist in a supernatural realm that is inaccessible to mere mortals. Thus, their possible existence can never be ruled out. However, there are claims that are made about certain gods that are open to investigation. The putative god most affecting my life and the lives of people I love is Yahweh, the god of Christians and Jews as portrayed in the bible. There are many claims about this particular god interacting with the natural world and, thus, these claims are open to investigation.
Fortunately, the bible is a book commonly available (and in multiple translations) so there is a general consensus on the supernatural claims concerning Yahweh’s existence. Unfortunately, there is no general consensus on the reliability of these claims. There are opinions that range from one extreme –- the bible is the inerrant word of God and everything in it down to the punctuation marks is perfectly correct when understood in proper context –- to the opposite extreme –- nothing in the bible shows any signs of real supernatural influence.
I have had a hard time coming up with convenient labels for these positions without being pejorative while still making the label descriptive of the position. I have finally settled on bible-believer for a person who holds the position that a particular supernatural claim in the bible is true and bible-doubter for a person who holds the position that the claim is false.
Then at one extreme is the person who is a bible-believer concerning all biblical claims of the supernatural and the other extreme is the person who is a bible-doubter concerning these claims. Since most people in this country are theists, but not to the extreme suggested above, I suspect most fall somewhere in the middle. That is, they believe some supernatural claims in the bible may be false, but others are likely to be true. I, on the other hand, am an extreme bible-doubter. I do not believe any claims concerning the supernatural are true. That is not the same as believing nothing in the bible is true, it is just a belief concerning supernatural claims of the bible.
I came by this belief after testing the bible. I had developed an hypothesis concerning the bible and read the bible as a test of that hypothesis. The hypothesis was that if the bible was the inspired word of a creator capable of producing the universe and the life in it and thus having decidedly superior knowledge of the universe and the life in it than we do now, then it should have undeniable evidence of that. The alternative hypothesis was that if the bible were not the inspired word of God, then it is the work of a primitive people with decidedly inferior knowledge of the universe and the life in it than we have now and nothing in the bible should suggest otherwise. After reading the bible twice, I found that the alternative hypothesis (nothing in the bible suggests any superior knowledge of the universe or the life in it) was strongly supported and the hypothesis that the bible should contain undeniable evidence of superior knowledge was not.
I had felt that the strength of these observations alone were sufficiently strong to rule out Yahweh’s existence (and I still do). But, I had not checked out the supernatural claims inside the bible as to whether or not they contradicted the above finding. Perhaps, even without any signs of superior knowledge, the bible may contain irrefutable evidence of supernatural involvement in the activities of the universe to warrant a belief in God. Certainly, some of the extreme bible-believers believe this to be the case.
One oft touted piece of evidence is biblical prophecy fulfillment. Again, opinions on the accuracy of prophecy fulfillment differ. For instance, concerning Messianic prophecies (prophecies about the coming of a Messiah), popular Christian apologist and extreme bible-believer, Josh McDowell says the Old Testament “contains several hundred references to the Messiah. All of these were fulfilled in Christ and they establish a solid confirmation of his credentials as the Messiah.” But Thomas Paine, one of our founding fathers and a deist, said, “I have examined all the passages in the New Testament quoted from the Old, and so-called prophecies concerning Jesus Christ, and I find no such thing as a prophecy of any person, and I deny there are any.”
Obviously, at least one person above fooled himself. To lessen the likelihood of such an event, one must establish objective guidelines in assessing the accuracy of prophecy fulfillment. The minimum criteria I have come up with are:
- A real prophecy must be made.
- The prophecy needs to be made well in advance of the date of fulfillment.
- The prophecy must contain SPECIFIC information.
- The prophecy must be so unlikely to happen that the only reasonable explanation for its fulfillment is the intervention of a supernatural entity (as opposed to a lucky guess).
- The prophecy must be fulfilled in all its particulars.
A corollary is that since the fulfillment of prophecy must be an event that is very unlikely to occur, there can be only one putative event that qualifies as fulfillment.
One criticism that may be made is that the above criteria are stringent. I do not believe this to be the case. If one recognizes that the supernatural demands a suspension of the well-tested laws of physics we have been living by, then one must admit that any claims for the existence of the supernatural fall in the realm of extraordinary claims. Any such claim then will require an extraordinary support. The reasoning behind this is that the laws of physics are so well established that the level of likelihood that they are correct approaches certainty. Thus, if data contradicts them, then either the laws are wrong (we already know that is unlikely) or the data is wrong. The only way to overturn established principles is to make the stringency on the data such that its likelihood of being wrong is less than that of what it disproves. Besides, Yahweh is claimed to be omniscient. A prophecy inspired from an omniscient being SHOULD be able to meet those criteria easily.
To date, I have examined several putative cases of prophecy fulfillment; prophecies concerning the city of Tyre found in Amos and Ezekiel, Isaiah’s Messianic prophecy (Isaiah 7:14), Jeremiah’s 70 year of servitude, etc. I have found that none of them come even close to meeting the criteria.
This series of posts deals with prophecies found in the book of Daniel. The book of Daniel is used by bible-believers as proof for the existence of God. They claim that it was written by a prophet who was a young man when King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem (605 BCE) and served in the court until at least the third year of the reign of the Persian king Cyrus (ca. 536 BCE). They claim that Daniel made miraculous prophecies, such as the coming of Christ, the Roman Empire, and God’s everlasting kingdom which is yet to come.
If their dating of Daniel is correct, then at least some of the prophecies he made were indeed miraculous (although others were clearly wrong). For instance, there are numerous and unmistakable prophecies concerning the conquests of Alexander the Great, events that did not happen until 332 BCE, over 200 years after the supposed time of Daniel.
Since there is no natural phenomenon that can explain this, if it is true then Daniel would be evidence for the existence of the supernatural. However, the only evidence to believe the dating of Daniel is from the book of Daniel. If we are going to question its reliability, we cannot assume before looking at it that it is indeed reliable. We must look for other evidence.
Most mainstream biblical scholars who have looked at Daniel dispassionately have concluded that the bible-believer’s dating of the book is indeed flawed. They cite overwhelming evidence that Daniel was not written until 167 BCE during the Maccabean Period, or about 400 years after the fundamentalist’s claim. Furthermore, once Daniel is put into its proper historical context, the prophecies that seem to predict the events mentioned above, really concern local events of the time. As such, it does not provide any evidence for the existence of the supernatural. Instead, it is shows Daniel to be a crude forgery and is evidence that the bible is a flawed document not likely to emanate from God.
In the upcoming series of posts I will summarize the evidence for the above assertion. I will look at the entire book of Daniel (12 chapters). Since the purpose of these posts is to examine the reliability of the book of Daniel, I will focus on mistakes and attempt an explanation as to how they occurred. From this critical analysis, one can deduce with reasonable certainty that the book of Daniel is a forgery.
Finding Truth 
yeah, I think I read it correctly.
Above you had, “In Ezekiel the name is spelled Dāniʾēl and in Daniel Dānîyēʾl.” but then went on to say that variation sin spelling are common in the bible and that both spellings were pronounced the same.
Was “Dani’el” the spelling used in the legend we’re talking about? If so, it’s still curious that Ezekiel used the spelling that the Book of Daniel didnt, while matching the spelling of another character was more contemporary with Noah and Job than Daniel of the Bible was.
I mean, it at least is curious, no?
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Dear William,
I am not an expert in Ugaritic, but I believe both spellings would look exactly the same in a Ugaritic text.
Since the article arguing for the Aqhat identification said that the the spelling argument is invalid (at least on my reading of the secondary source above–I haven’t gotten the ILLs yet as it takes a while for that to happen) it would seem like a good reason to think it is invalid.
Also, I believe Aqhat worshipped multiple gods in the Legend, including Baal and El, but I still have to check it again.
Thanks.
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yeah, but it says it’s invalid because they’re pronounced the same.
It appears as though the “what’s valid or not valid” remark is more opinion, as others share different ones. Scholars and non-scholars alike.
The fact still remains is that Ezekiel and Daniel spell the name differently.
Similar to Jon and John.
Say you have a buddy named John and then make a comment about George Washington, Jon and Abraham Lincoln.
would it be obvious to everyone that you mean your pal John, if there were a well known Jon that actually dates back closer to George and Abraham?
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Tom, I noted that you disparaged a potential character for the ‘Daniel’ reference in Ezekiel by using the term ‘drunken Baal worshipper’.
I wonder have you read Genesis 9:20-28? Seems Noah was partial to drink and not in moderation.
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I don’t really have anything else to say about the Daniel/Danel thing, so I’ll move on to another of your points, Tom. You state that there’s no evidence that the Book of Daniel might have had multiple authors, redactors, editors, etc. From what I’ve been able to tell, there’s debate about this in the scholarly community.
As we’ve stated before, the Book of Daniel is written in two different languages, it doesn’t maintain a consistent voice throughout (first person, 3rd person, etc), and there’s content variance among the different versions. These reasons, along with some others, have led some scholars to think that whomever ultimately wrote what we think of today as The Book of Daniel had some prior stories (like Babylonian court tales) to work from. I’m going to try to track down few books that discuss this in more detail, but this Wikipedia page offers some interesting information, and it seems to be well-sourced:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Daniel#Composition
But this is information you’re already familiar with. So what kind of evidence do you think should exist if this is how the book was put together? And do you have thoughts on why a single author would have written it in two different languages, why it would have gone from 3rd to 1st person, and why some versions of Daniel contain additional stories, etc?
Thanks
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Tom, etc…,
Sorry I didn’t have a chance to join the party earlier today. Much of what I would say has already been covered but I may have a few worthwhile notes to add.
Regarding Ezekiel’s Daniel, I was struck by Nate’s comment about Daniel being childless – this was a point I had never encountered before. So I decided to go back and re-read with the “sons and daughters” component in mind and discovered something new. Ezekiel 14:12-23 appears to be comparing the effect of God’s judgement on other nations with the effect of his judgment on Jerusalem. In that case v12 – 20 are effectively saying “If I send just one judgment onto another land, a person’s righteousness won’t save even their sons or daughters” and then v21 – 22 are effectively saying “but even when I send four judgments against Jerusalem, some sons and daughters are saved and they will repent”. So the point is to emphasize Israel’s chosen status (as in v11) and how God’s judgment on Jerusalem is a vehicle for purification and repentance rather than punishment. What’s interesting, then, is that Daniel would be included in the “other nations”. Noah and Job fit this as pre-Abrahamic characters. The thoroughly Jewish Daniel would be a very odd fit if this is in fact the intent of the passage.
Please explain why Zechariah knowing of Daniel is a better explanation than either (a) the four horns referring to all nations, just as the “four corners” or “four winds” refer to all lands in the other visions, or (b) the four horns referring to rulers and\or nations up to Zechariah’s time – such as Egypt, Assyria, Babylon and Persia, or some combination of rulers therein. Please also explain how Zechariah’s visions are building on Daniel yet still culminate in the establishment of the new temple and God’s eternal kingdom through the work of Zerubbabel.
I concur with Nate’s response to this and will add a question – how do you explain that even after being around for 300+ years the Greek translation of Daniel deviated so much from the Masoretic? Are there any other 6th century “unified” texts that show the textual and translational variations that we see in Daniel?
Oh, so then do you also think that the entire New Testament wasn’t circulated and accepted as scripture until the 3rd century? How long after the authorship of Luke do you think the author of 1 Timothy was writing when he referred to Luke as scripture in 1 Timothy 5:18? I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that you think Paul wrote 1 Timothy, which would then require no more than 10 years between the authorship of Luke and a reference to it as scripture in 1 Timothy.
Correct me if I’m misreading, but I take this to mean that you think that inerrancy is the default position? So the fact that we agree that 99.9999% of written texts were produced by humans who make mistakes has no bearing on the prior probability for the errancy of biblical texts?
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Earlier, someone stated that the burden of proof rested with the one who makes a positive statement. If that’s the case, wouldn’t the bible bear the burden of proof, since its authors claim to speak for God?
Where’s the proof to substantiate their claims?
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@william,
That’s sort of the point of this whole exchange. I did my study of Daniel because I was looking for proof that any content in the Bible had a divine origin and this seemed like the best candidate. Tom and other apologists argue that the fulfillment of prophecy in Daniel is the proof to substantiate the claims that God has spoken through the author.
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So, this new understanding of Ezekiel 14:12-23 is making a ton of sense to me. It seems clear to me now that the whole point of the passage is that even one instance of God’s judgment is thorough and devastating to a nation’s future, even if there are some who are righteous, but his judgment still preserves the sons and daughters of Jerusalem even through multiple instances because they are his chosen people and will come to repentance as a result. I can’t make sense of it any other way.
With this in mind, it becomes clear that there is another problem with the identification of the biblical Daniel (aside from the fact that he is a Jew). v22 speaks of the sons and daughters who come from Jerusalem and escape the judgment – but Daniel is part of this group! Why would Daniel be named in the examples where the sons and daughters do not survive when he himself is one of the survivors of the judgment on Jerusalem?
I was previously ambivalent on the identity of Daniel in Ezekiel, but I never really understand what that passage was trying to say. Everybody seemed to be focused on the fact that Noah, Daniel and Job were identified as righteous, but that completely misses the point. Now that the purpose of the text actually makes sense to me, it’s pretty clear that the biblical Daniel is a horrible fit.
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Travis,
I agree. My question was rhetorical.
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Dear Nate,
I’m still waiting on the library to get the JSTOR articles. My public library wouldn’t do it and now I’m waiting on my college library.
In relation to various comments above, Dan’el in the Legend of Aqhat was not an El monotheist (a rare bird for sure), but a typical polytheist.
I still haven’t heard from any of my friends here that they have actually read the Legend of Aqhat. Have any of you actually done that?
Dear Peter,
Yes, Noah got drunk, but it is plain in Genesis that the drunkenness was a bad thing and it was hardly the dominant characteristic of Noah’s life. In contrast, in the Legend of Aqhat drunkenness was fine, and the gods can give a son so that he can lead you home whenever you are blind drunk. Surely such a blind drunkard deserves to be placed alongside of Noah and Job as great intercessors before Jehovah, but a righteous and wise contemporary named Daniel, who actually did intercede for Israel, does not fit the description.
Travis,
I’m not going to have time to put in a detailed exposition of Zechariah here. You will have to look into it yourself. Zechariah never said that God’s eternal kingdom would come under Zerubbabel, though. That is crazy.
Also, I must confess that saying that Daniel is a “horrible fit” in Ezekiel is fantastic. This looks like the topic is not merely intellectual here, but the will and emotions are involved in such a statement. Perhaps if Daniel is a horrible fit Noah isn’t the Biblical Noah either, but is the guy that started Noah’s bagels.
To whoever made the comment earlier (I didn’t go back):
Certainly some people want to argue that Daniel was a compilation of various sources. However, there is not a shred of external evidence for that claim. It must be taken on blind faith.
Also, I hope that whoever asked why part of Daniel was in Aramaic and some in Hebrew actually had studied the subject well enough to know the rather obvious response that part of the book was written with a Gentile focus (the Aramaic chapters) and part with a Jewish focus (the Hebrew chapters). A sixth century Jew in a Gentile court, BTW, would know both languages very well.
I still haven’t heard how Daniel knew the walls of the Babylonian palace were plastered, nor have I found the other Babylonian texts that supposedly also have names that look just like Daniel’s three friends, nor have I found out why the author of Daniel must be so incompetent that he must make the Medes and the Persians into one empire in some chapters but forget that he did it in others so that there is no predictive prophecy.
Thanks for all the interaction. That’s all I have time for now.
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Tom,
If I am driven by an emotional desire to reject the clear and obvious true interpretation and instead adopt crazy interpretations of the texts, then why are you trusting me to look into it myself? Please, explain why Zechariah only makes sense if Daniel was already known.
Regarding Ezekiel 14, please explain why Daniel is associated with nations whose descendants would not be spared by God’s wrath, which are then contrasted against the remnant from Jerusalem, the group to which the Daniel you seek belongs.
This feels like you are ignoring Nate’s response. He gave you several lines of evidence. Twice. Can you identify any other 6th century texts that are preserved with the kinds of variation we see in Daniel? If that variation is not evidence of redaction, then what is it evidence of?
This comes from a portion of Daniel which is generally acknowledged to have roots in a pre-Maccabean tradition, so some historical knowledge may be present. And even if that detail wasn’t known, please explain why it is improbable for a writer to have identified plaster for the material of the palace walls. Was plaster rarely used? What other material might the author have identified that could have reasonably been etched?
I believe Nate has already shown that these are far from being clear references to the same people and, as above, if we accept that this portion comes from a pre-Maccabean tradition then Babylonian names may very well have derived from names that were known to the Jews who were exiled in Babylon.
Under our interpretation, chapter 8 combines Media and Persia into a single entity, whereas chapters 2 and 7 do not. This is a fair criticism, so let me offer some additional considerations:
1) Chapter 8 is the only place where a Medo-Persian duality is made clear (longer second horn comes after the shorter first) – none of the other supposed references to the combined Medo-Persian empire make reference to this duality.
2) The identification of Media as a separate kingdom prior to Persia in the other chapters does not preclude the knowledge that it was merged with the Persian empire.
3) Under your interpretation, Rome is also excluded in chapter 8. Why is the exclusion of Rome not an equally troubling problem? Perhaps because chapter 8 is focused on Alexander’s defeat of the Medo-Persian empire and the subsequent rise of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, so it is not a surprise that it does not follow the pattern of chapters 2 and 7.
4) The horns of the Medo-Persian ram are a parallel with the horns of the Alexandrian goat, such that they both represent distinct divisions of a larger kingdom. This parallelism would not be present if Media was excluded or identified as a separate animal.
5) Chapter 8 is preserved in Hebrew, chapters 2 and 7 are in Aramaic. Perhaps this is a sign that the chapter 8 prophecy was written by a different hand than chapters 2 and 7.
I don’t expect that you will find these to be convincing reasons for allowing chapter 8 to diverge from chapters 2 and 7, but I hope they can help you see why we may not think that the divergence is a compelling evidence for your interpretation.
And finally, a wall of passages which support the claim that God’s eternal kingdom was expected to arise under Zerubbabel…
Yeah, I know that Haggai isn’t the same as Zechariah but a lot of scholars think that they were part of the same text at one point. You’re welcome to interpret all this as referring to Jesus, but I think this demonstrates that it is quite sane to read this as an expectation that the completion of the temple under Zerubbabel would usher in God’s eternal kingdom.
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Dear Travis,
Thanks for the comment. One quick question: what are you talking about with the “kinds of variation we see in Daniel”? Are you talking about Hebrew/Aramaic texts of Daniel that show clear evidence of being put together later? I doubt it, since there isn’t anything like this, but the oldest MSS of Daniel are like the printed Masoretic text. Are you talking about the fact that the translator in the LXX didn’t do a good job (which is very different than saying that there is evidence of parts of the book being put together)? Why is not being a good translator evidence of the book being in two parts? I am not trying to ignore (twice) evidence Nate allegedly gave. I might have missed it (this is a long comment section, no?) but I have no idea what you are talking about.
If there is real evidence Daniel was put together later from fragments, and this isn’t a blind faith position, then surely you can tell me which parts of the book are earlier and which are later, and give me real, substantial evidence for this “fact.” This would be important if we are acknowledging that parts of the book are clearly before the Maccabees if one wants to maintain the position that there are no predictive prophecies in the book. Please let me know what parts of Daniel are pre-165 B. C., and what your tangible evidence is for this claim.
Thank you for admitting that combining the Medes and the Persians as a single empire–the view, as far as I can recall, of every ancient interpreter of the book, because it is the obvious and natural interpretation–is a “fair criticism” of the position that they are two empires where it is necessary to make them so to eliminate the predictive prophecies in the book. I appreciate that.
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By the way, I don’t think I need to comment on the Zechariah texts. None of them say that God’s eternal kingdom would arise under Zerubbabel. I can only imagine what I would be getting if I used an argument like this in favor of Daniel or Christian orthodoxy.
Thanks again.
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Tom, it may be a problem of the Book of Daniel just not making perfect sense at all, no matter which way you view it. This is why it’s a struggle to line every theory up on either side.
To some, the only way to make perfect sense of this Book, that doesn’t make perfect sense, is to say that it was written by a man, without a perfect deity’s involvement. People make mistakes and don’t always make perfect sense.
But yes, there’s sill unanswered questions, but the Christian explanations are no better, still with plenty of unanswered questions.
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Tom,
I agree with Nate’s summary comment here. I will also add the following:
1) There appears to be a chiastic structure to the Masoretic version of the Aramaic chapters (see A. Lenglet), suggesting it was once a singular unit.
2) The LXX text appears more likely to be a translation rather than a redaction (see Meadowcroft and Bludau). This implies that it is based on a semitic text with essentially the same variations – which betrays a redactional history prior to translation.
3) The acceptance of the differences in the Greek translation is inconsistent with a text that already had a long standing acceptance in the community (as with the Pentateuch). If Daniel was a 6th century text then it must not have been very highly regarded.
My guess is that chapters 3 – 6 form the core of the pre-Maccabean tradition (though probably not as a unified text). The dream and interpretation in chapter 4 and the hand-writing interpretation of chapter 5 then served as the inspiration for a Maccabean redaction to create the chiastic text of chapters 2 – 7, adding the chapter 2 and 7 prophecies, all in Aramaic. A second contemporary redactor then built upon this to add the introduction in chapter 1 and chapters 8 – 12 in Hebrew. As a young and volatile text, different versions, additions and arrangements of these redactions were available and are reflected in the Greek translations (LXX and Theodotion).
I guess you’re requiring manuscript evidence of the separate sections of the non-unified text and you’re correct that we don’t have that, but that doesn’t negate the proposition that a redactional view is very good at explaining the variation. How does your view explain those things?
Did you also catch the part where I gave reasons why this isn’t compelling evidence for also reading Media and Persia as a single empire in chapters 2 and 7?
That’s fine. This is tangential and only relevant to the argument that Zechariah elaborates upon the prophecies of Daniel.
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