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Author Topic:   The Prophecy of the 70 weeks of Daniel
Brian
Member (Idle past 4987 days)
Posts: 4659
From: Scotland
Joined: 10-22-2002


Message 350 of 365 (474687)
07-10-2008 8:27 AM
Reply to: Message 349 by starman
07-10-2008 3:53 AM


Re: Prophecy after the fact?
Maybe it doesn't matter to you, but to critical scholarship it matters a great deal. For example, if you could produce a contemporary gMat then that would give you a strong argument, as it is though, what is the earliest extant gMat, is it 300 or 400 years after Jesus died? That gives ample time for editing.
No, that says nothing about how we had the records circulating already, and knew what the record of Matthew was!
No you don't.
This is the whole point, you really do not know what the original text was, since you do not have an original to compare to the gMat that we have then you are up a gum tree.
You do know that the earliest existing copies of gMat are not identical?
That simply says the record is doubted by an outsider. So??? You have nothing to say about it, we had, and have the record.
If you have the record then show it to us. But you don't have, and it is very likely that the gMat that we have is not even the same one that the early church used.
You seem to doubt God, now as well, and His ability to get a good collection of the records we had together!
What does God have to do with anything?
Tell me, do you believe that the Bibles we have today are identical to the earliest texts we have?
Your doubts are worthless. Get it?? Try fact. The fact is you got nothin. We got plenty.
The fact is, I need nothing, you are the one saying Matthew prophecised before the Temple fell, and the fact is you got nothing but hand waving and wishful thinking. Where are the texts written before the Temple fell?
quote:
Indeed we don't. That is why the book is entitled 'according to Matthew'. There is no good reason to suppose its author(s) even knew Jesus.
quote:
Being a deciple really is a great reason!
  —starman
You do realise that gMat is an anonymous work, we do not know who wrote it, now that is a fact.
quote:
Having his records passed down, in the sacred way we did stuff, means we knew it was his.
  —Starman
You do not know it is his. Look, if you have proof that the gMat we have belongs to the apostle Matthew you can pick up your ph.d from any uni you want, the uni will even pay you a great deal of money to associate yourself with them. But the fact is, you have nothing, you have shown us nothing except that you really don't know the subject very well.
The point about the gMat that we have is that it MAY not be the same text reffered to by the early church fathers. I'll repeat for you, there is nothing in the gMat that suggests that it was written by Matthew the apostle.
As for this:
Having his records passed down, in the sacred way we did stuff
'The way we did stuff' means what? That each text was carefully copied so that there was an accurate record kept of each book, is this what you are saying?
Do you know the earliest gMat in existence that mentions the Temple 'prophecy'?
quote:
Are you doubting it was destroyed now??
  —starman
When did I say that?
The evidence we do have suggests that the gMat we have was written well after the destruction of the Temple.
If you could come up with one tiny little piece of evidence to support a pre-70 CE text then that would be nice, but you have failed to do so, just like you failed on the Daniel text.
quote:
Or are you doubting Jesus was alive before that?
  —starman
I doubt whether the Jesus of the NT ever existed.
quote:
Or are you suggesting another hoax here, where evil fraudsters conspired to fabricate a prophesy??? Or do you even have a point?
  —starman
I got lots of points, you are unable to address any of them, and it is becoming boring.
quote:
The Man that said Daniel was a prophet,
  —starman
Only if you blindly accept everything you read in the Bible. But the realisty is, we have NO idea what Jesus said as He left nothing behind Him. He wrote nothing, He left NO possessions, we do not know where He was buried, we do not know when He was born, or when He died. We really do no know very much about Him for being the so-called Messiah, so you do not know if Jesus mentioned Daniel or not.
quote:
and that the temple would be destroyed?
  —starman
We don't know if He said that either. As it looks right now, someone invented this 'prophecy' (that's if Jesus was talking about the Temple) long after Jesus was worm food, so your special pleading makes no difference at all.
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The man that defied all laws of temporary universe physics?
  —starman
And your proof that Jesus defied all of temporary universe physics (what ever that is) is what exactly? The same collection of tatty ancient contradicting texts?
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The Man that called Matthew?
  —starman
More circular reasoning Starman, do you always use the Bible to support the Bible? Do you never post anything to support the biblical text from outside of the Bible?
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Boy do you got a wrong number. Work on that.
  —starman
Starman, come into the world of adult research, all your posts suggest that you have a very naive and very limited appraoch to the Bible.
Why are you scared to actually study the evolution of the Bible?
Oh, while I remember, what is the earliest existing text of Matthew that mentions the destruction of the Temple? Try to answer the question if you can, if not, just say you don't know, it's no problem.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 349 by starman, posted 07-10-2008 3:53 AM starman has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 356 by starman, posted 07-11-2008 2:14 AM Brian has not replied

Brian
Member (Idle past 4987 days)
Posts: 4659
From: Scotland
Joined: 10-22-2002


Message 361 of 365 (474914)
07-12-2008 6:38 AM


There's a wealth of evidence that the 'prophecies' in Daniel were indeed written well after the events that they were supposed to have 'predicted'.
On a very very basic level, we have no text of Daniel that can be dated to earlier than the 2nd century BCE.
The we have the fact that the book is never mentioed in any extant Jewish literature before the 2nd century BCE.
We have the fact that the book wasn't added to the Jewish canon until 90 CE, it was not included in the earlier canon that was closed c. 2nd century BCE.
We have a host of historical inaccuracies, which only improve the closer we get to the 2nd century BCE. If the book was written by someone living in the 6th century BCE we would expect the author not to have made som many historical errors, for example, it wouldn't be too much to ask for him to at least get the succession of Babylonian rulers.
The reference to 'Chaldean' as another word for 'Soothsayer' is another clue as 'Chaldean' was never used in this context until the 2nd century BCE.
The book was written by more than one person, one scholar thinks there may be as many as nine authors.
Ecclesiastes, written about 180 BCE, does not include Daniel in its list of great Israelites.
Chapter 8 doesn't really make much sense if written in the 6th century BCE. The author(s) cannot make up there mind(s) when the cessation of daily sacrifices are to stop. It starts in 8:14 with 2,300 mornings and evenings (3 years, 35 days), but in 7:25 it is given as 3 1/2 years, in 9:27 it is 3 1/2 years, in 12:11 it is 1,290 days but in the very next verse it is 1,335 days.
12: 11 "From the time that the daily sacrifice is abolished and the abomination that causes desolation is set up, there will be 1,290 days.
12:12 Blessed is the one who waits for and reaches the end of the 1,335 days.
It is a complete mess, and best explained by recognising that the writer(s) must have been writing during the reign of Antiochus and really didn't know when the 'Abomination that makes Desolate' would be finished. The fact that the Zues Olympios is mentioned also points to a late date.
There'e a clear defining line in Daniel between history and prophecy, if we look at 11:22-45 we find a description that fits Antiochus Epiphanes. The demarcation can be found at verse 40, where a third campaign against Egypt is recorded, however there was no third campaign. Daniel also claims that Antiochus will die in Palestine, but we know he died in the east in Iran. Thus, it looks as if Daniel was written about 166-165 BCE, because that is where historical facts relating to the 2nd century BCE go askew.
There's far more to discuss, such as the host of later interpolations into the text, but I couldn't get a simple answer to my very first question, so much of the debate was worthless.
If Starman was able to have a civil debate, then we could have discussed a whole range of issues.
But, even this cursory summary, and the complete lack of evidence for the text existing before the 2nd century BCE, does not help the 6th century BCE guys, and the biggest condemnation is that the main prophecy of Daniel failed.
The pro-6th century BCE guys on this thread have actually shown nothing except religious fervour in support of their 6th century BCE date. Starman, in particular, takes a very naive approach to the composition of the biblical texts, which is fine, he is fully entitled to do that. However, he shouldn't get upset when he discovers that this approach doesn't merit much of a response from people who have studied the Bible at a high academic level.

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