When was the Book of Daniel written?

Who are the 13 prophets? There are 15 or more prophets whose names are used to identify books in our Bible, not counting several other books of history.You appear to be missing at least two, couldn't Daniel have been one of them? What are the 22 books? Our Bibles have 39 books in the Old Testament, the Jewish canon has 24.Again, you appear to be missing at least 2. Couldn't one of them have been Daniel? Josephus does not appear to recognize Daniel as one of the traditional prophets of the Hebrew canon. In fact, he argues very hard that he should be paid attention to, even though he is very different from them. http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/ant-10.htmJosephus is also notoriously inaccurate about Persian history, particularly the early period. He confuses Xerxes with Artaxerxes, Cyaxares II with Astyages, and makes numerous other errors.This isn't all his fault, he is constrained by the standards of his Roman masters to follow Greek historians and dramatists (!) who were engaged in propagandizing their enemies rather than getting minor details right like who was who and what was what. He is aware of this, and apologizes to his readers for it. He is also currying imperial favor in another way. He has taken their gens name Flavius, he wants to be an important advisor. It is probably not a coincidence that his writings have a recurrent theme of conquerors reading books written by Jews which very wisely say how great the victorious emperors are.Alexander is not the first of these, here is what he says about Cyrus http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/ant-11.htmInteresting thing to be writing when you are engaged in petitioning for the restoration of Jerusalem based on your service as governor under their rule. Here is the Alexander version Notice that in this passage Alexander enters the temple and that's just OK with everyone in the story! Clearly we are dealing with some other kind of literature at this point than a sober, factual history.Here's the punchline to this one http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/war-6.htmJust as a side note, the Isaiah passage doesn't refer to its subject as a Persian king at any time, but rather as the messiahThe name Cyrus is actually Latin, following Josephus rather than vice-versa. The Hebrew word it is standing in for, in case anyone has forgotten the dangers of making too much of this particular scripture, is Koresh. David Koresh - WikipediaAnyway, back to the point. Did he, though? Is this a strict rendering of the words of Jesus in his speech, or is it a paraphrased commentary by someone with their own sermon to preach Is Jesus a character in a fictional book, who can "break the fourth wall" and speechify directly to the reader?Here is how Luke records the same address No abomination, no Daniel, and no wink to us.I'm going to let you blame Matthew for this one until you get caught up Now for the rough stuff. Wow, icthus in a barrel. If your faith was of any value to you at all, I don't think you would be betting it on Imperial toadies and dodgy numerology schemes. Which would place his birth around 6 AD. Josephus puts the death of Herod the Great at 4 BC, 9 years earlier. (Can't have your Matthew and eat it too ...)

Yeah I'm familiar with the composition of the 24 Books That Make The Hands Unclean. Sorry if I gave you the impression I wasn't somehow. What I am asking you is, why do you think Josephus only has 22 of them?You don't seem to understand that he was writing before the Council of Jamnia, which is where the status of Esther and Daniel was finally settled. Esther was let in because she was one of the 6 megilloth ("booklets"), which are small scrolls which are kept separate from the long ones and tied together in a kind of "tract bouquet" because they are traditionally recited at home for Jewish holidays, similar to for example "The Night Before Christmas".Esther was the last of these to be let in, because she doesn't contain any reference to God and is purely a "racial pride" story, for a festival not prescribed by the Torah but rather simply made up, of recent innovation.Daniel was let in after Esther. He is even more doubtful than her.

Back in the day, when I was beginning to read up on these things, this whole line of apologetics particularly troubled me. Sure, it makes sense to call somebody a "son of David" hundreds of years later when you are making a dynastic point and no one is is going to be the least bit confused about what you are saying. For example.But it doesn't make the same kind of sense at all, for your Mom to be referring to her father as your father. Wouldn't she have said MY dad? Or else YOUR grandpaw .... I was beginning to feel my wild oats by then, so I kept asking questions.Finally one of the church elders took me off to one side, and said "Listen kid, have you ever seen a movie with Jack Nicholson in it called Chinatown? ..." Inside a palace, long shot, slowly zooming in. Darius the Mede is interrogating Prince Belshazzar.Belshazzar: "She's my mother." Darius slaps him.Belshazzar: "She's my sister!" Darius continues slapping him as the zoom proceeds.Belshazzar: "She's my mother .... She's my sister ... mother! ... sister ... " Extreme close-up on Belshazzar's face, bruised and crying, as he sobs:Belshazzar: "She's ... my mother ... and my sister!" Later, outside the palace.Daniel: "Darius, man ... forget about it. It's Babylon ..."

You are misunderstanding something you have been told. The translation into Greek attributed in legend to the time of King Ptolemy Philadelphus (281-240BC) was never asserted to have encompassed anything beyond the Law (Torah).Here's Josephus again http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/ant-12.htmThe "Septuagint" as we now have it is a third-century AD reconstruction carried out by Origen using various old Greek renderings (including corrective translations made from the Targums by Aquila and Theodotian), in which the Apostolic references to various Hebrew scriptures have been written in in the exact words of the New Testament to replace the literal text.
Hexapla - WikipediaEdited by Iblis, : miskey

Timing, not canonization. Wrote the history of, not, were accepted as being comparable to the Torah by the priesthood and/or rabbinical authorities during.We tend to believe that the Prophets (Nephibim) were canonized by around 200BC because that's about the time they started being read as haftarah, citations helping to interpret the reading from the Torah. This provoked a huge new fight with the Samaritans, who never accepted them, because the readings, not only from Isaiah and Jeremiah and so on but also from Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings, tended to often focus on how corrupt the northern kingdom had been and how treacherous the behavior of the current "inhabitants of the land" was.This internal strife was what led Antiochus Epiphanes to come down and start trying to restore order, and the Samaritans were generally supportive of his move. The Maccabees fought back and history started being made again, with a huge upsurge in religous writings of every kind.We know that the status of the Ketubim (Writings) wasn't settled in full until at least the 2nd century AD. We know beyond any doubt that during the first half of the 1st century, there were plenty of very authoritative rabbis who did not give any of the Ketubim with the exception of the Psalms the same status as the Torah and Nephibim.As for example We believe, based on Josephus and on the account of the debated texts given in the Mishnah and the attribution of the decision that they do in fact require hand-washing when dealing with, like the Torah and Nephibim, that as many as 9 of them were already accepted in some sense by around AD 70. Esther and Daniel required significantly further debate, because they are political texts from the Maccabean period, though they pretend to be something else.Esther, for example, sets the origin of the feast of Purim in the 5th century. It is actually a celebration of the Maccabees victory over Nicanor! She makes no mention of God for the same reason the dreidl was developed as a game to disguise the sacred texts: there was a death sentence on religious activity at the time it was written. The author of the Greek version of Esther, written after the war was won, urges his recipients to celebrate the new feast and adds many prayers and prophecies to the text. He is also the author of the Second book of Maccabees, in which he gives a similar sell to the new feast of Hanukkah at the beginning, and ends his account with the battle against Nicanor.The history of Daniel is almost exactly parallel. It speaks of the real events of the Maccabean period in riddles attributed to a 6th-century court astrologer and has the same focus on dietary law while capitulating to the religious practices of the conquerors. After the war is over it is re-released in Greek, with added material including a long and explicit prayer in the fiery furnace. In addition, the First book of Maccabees is provided, detailing the exact events hidden in the symbols of the apocalypse in plain historical language.Edited by Iblis, : sense

Hi Peg Don't let it get to you, I know it can't be easy being jumped by several dudes at once. But you don't want to get stampeded into saying things that might confound the brethren, or end up doing your argument more harm than good. Nebuchadnezzar's rebuilding of Babylon after his father Nabopolasser's overthrow of the Assyrian empire and the sacking of Nineveh is not a big archaeological mystery, it's a commonly reported fact. His construction of the famous Hanging Gardens for his Median wife Amytis (to remind her of the steppes of her homeland) is a great romance of legendary history. It's one of the 7 Wonders of the World! These were a teaching tool in the gymnasia of the Hellenic Empires, which Jewish nationals were being required to attend during the reign of Antiochus.Which is all just an interesting detour, seeing how as at no point in the story does Daniel show Nebuchadnezzar actually rebuilding Babylon or constructing any towers or palaces or gardens or walls. Don't you think he would have? Which laws of the Babylonians would those be? The ones that say slaves may have a bit of trouble if they try to tell the Master of Eunuchs they don't want to eat his dirty unclean pork? But he may let them get away with it if they make a bet out of it?I think I know where you are reaching with this one, though. The main (only?) law we hear about in the Nebuchadnezzar part of Daniel is in the deliciously outre story where he is apparently credited with building the Colossus, another of the 7 Wonders (actually located in Rhodes, though) and requiring that whenever his fellas play a charming list of Greek instruments unknown in Babylon in the 6th century, they all have to bow down to it.So fine, link me a translation or copy or picture of this law that shows any such thing has ever been dug up in Babylon. Or the Colossus itself. Or whatever you got.We first hear about this giant in the dream Nebuchadnezzar has Daniel interpret for him, in which it is used to give a new interpretation of the 4 Ages of the World, a Greek concept dating back to Hesiod and still in partial use to this day (though Gold and Silver have been replaced with Paleolithic and Neolithic, the fact of which metals they had advanced to working remains characteristic of the cultures involved.) Another teaching tool, from the gymnasia, totally unrepresented in real Babylonian literature. If you mean the fact that the laws of the Persian Empire couldn't be changed once passed, that's another extremely common teaching point in Greek academics. It's mentioned over and over again, as an example of how democracies like Athens and even military republics like Sparta are still superior to their barbaric enemies like Xerxes.If you mean the specific law that "Darius" supposedly passed that no one could bow down to anybody or anything but him, there's no such law. There couldn't possibly be such a law, as the first thing Cyrus did after breaking the siege was to issue a decree that everyone could return to worshipping their own gods in their own way without interference from the government. And such a law, once made, would have been, what? If we keep chasing after Esther she will lead us further and further off topic. You could probably start another thread about her after this one is finished? But if you do, go ahead and cut yourself a break and bone up on the subject by reading these links about the Day of the Victory of Marduk
Akitu - Wikipedia
Zagmuk - Wikipedia
and the related dramatic festivals leading up to it, involving the king choosing a courtesan out of a selection provided by the temple for a public display, the descent of Ishtar into the underworld, and one slave being clad in the king's discarded clothes and given his honors while another is executed in his place. So anyway, have you managed to redo your math yet with the Weeks or Years? I know you were pretty excited about that and it seemed like you were getting stifled. Whereas I am all ears (and calculator, of course.)

Yeah, forcing the crucifixion into 36 AD helps to highlight another problem with trying to use the math this way; which is that someone might actually check out what Daniel really says about the person expected to show up and represent himself as God during the last week If that's a bit too nebulous for you, here's the commentary by St. John the Divine In case someone thinks I'm cheating, here's Daniel again, outright telling us what he means The last half of a "week". 42 months. 1290 days. All fancy ways of saying three and a half years, the traditional length assigned to the ministry of Jesus. And what it's saying, isn't very pretty.Spoooky ...Edited by Iblis, : quote

Oh please, like I didn't give evidence. Message 27 Josephus says repeatedly that what the interpreters imported by Ptolemy translated was the Law.Look, here he is again, describing what Ptolemy wanted a translation of, and why http://sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/ant-12.htmLaws, not "oracles". (Don't you think that if Josephus had the slightest chance of hawking his oracular resources here, he would have jumped on it?)There are only three people before the 2nd century AD who even mention a translation in Ptolemy's time: Josephus; his source, the pseudo-epigraphic Letter of Aristeas; and Philo. And on the extremely relevant point that the only thing translated at this time was Moses, these three agree as one.Here's Philo Philo: On the Life of Moses, IILegislation, not divination. Moses, not Daniel! Haha no, what I "seem to think" is that the Ptolemy story is a legend, based on a known hoax, repeated by a filthy Quisling posing as a historian, and acquiesced to by an Alexandrian mystic who devoted his life to showing how Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch was an allegorical text describing the process of enlightenment in symbolic terms rather than a history, and therefore shouldn't just be rejected out-of-hand on the grounds that it was obviously mistaken about numerous events; and that the "Septuagint" being bandied about in these sort of contexts, as well as Josephus, are extremely ill-fitting tools in the hands of apologetics fans, who appeal to them when it suits their nefarious purpose (Matthew was right about the virgin! James really existed!) and then totally ignore them when they become inconvenient (The Apocrypha are scripture? Vespasian was the real King of the Jews?)But all I need to argue against the claims advanced regarding the dating of Daniel is what we know: no one within a thousand years of the alleged event even says that anything was translated as early as 241 BC, except the Law of Moses. So let's look again at what Josephus actually wrote Note the larger context. Josephus writes "history". For the period from the Big Be to Artie of the Long Arm, he has a special source, which he goes to no end of trouble to match up with other historians and derive dates for; but none of his 22 books help him after that.For the period covering Alexander through Antiochus Epiphanes, his primary local sources, the ones identified above as not being esteemed of like authority, are the First book of Maccabees and the eleventh chapter of the Book of Daniel. It therefore follows, as surely as the morning follows the evening, that Daniel is not one of his 22 books. Claims he makes about them, however spurious, are irrelevant to the question of the dating of Daniel.This agrees extremely well with what he actually says about Daniel within his alleged Persian context Message 11 which is that, unlike the "real" prophets, he cuts a guy a break and doesn't make him wade through 5 or 10 pages of weeping and wailing for every historical marker.He lays it all out for you, one thing after another, like an intelligence officer summarizing the weaknesses of rival empires in support of a guerilla campaign to be won by pitting them one against the other.

Except that Jesus quotes from outside the canon all the time.As for example From here Of course, Jesus the son of Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) is just ordinary wisdom literature, it's not like it's attributed falsely or something ... from here Here's the same reference again, in Matthew, this time given by name rather than substance, as he is wont to do Of course, that's still just wise sayings, even if misattributed, it's not like it's a totally fictional work ... like this one Still, Tobit isn't completely historically falsified, it's not like it's one of those Maccabean-period books where Nebuchadnezzar is just a code word for the Greeks but this is There's also this from a source that has already been cited in this connection I can do this for hours, there are several from each of these, but I think I will close this post up with one of my favorites, not the least because it gives us some insight into how Jesus works with his crowd.Here he is, with an uncanny prompt from the proverbial innocent bystander, referencing a teaching from the story of Samuel While Jesus takes the lead from this and uses it to launch a sermon against the Pharisees, let's take a sneak peek at his real source We know that this is the text, rather than the actual book of Samuel, because the real prophet leaves out the part about small offerings. As Jesus gets to the end of his sermon, up steps another convenient person acting out: What's Jesus doing quoting from Josephus, by the way? It's almost as if, after he was executed under Pontius Pilate, he didn't really stay dead. He seems to have gone on talking to people and teaching them for years and years after that ...But you don't really believe that, do you?

Then I suppose he wasn't influenced by this extremist Jew, either or this one or this one or this one or this one or especially this one Now that that's settled, what's left for this to mean? We know that the saying Jesus is quoting in the first century AD is a quote, because ben Sirach already said it around 180 BC. By your logic, he must be quoting it from the Law or the Prophets. Show me where.

That would be fine if we were looking for a source for loving your neighbor as yourself. We aren't. What we are making reference to, is a principle, that you should forgive your enemies, so God will forgive you, when you pray. This is a quote from Jesus ben Sirach, nothing less. It's a much better quote, more word-for-word exact, than the vast majority of Old Testament "quotes" in the Gospels. It beats a lot of Matthew's fabrications hands down.If I say "God helps those who help themselves", I'm quoting Ben Franklin. I may not know who I'm quoting, I may not have his exact words right, but I sure didn't make it up just by knowing what a cypher God is. I got it from Ben Franklin. Didn't I?