So this description of how Nabonidus put Belshazzar at the helm disproves critics claims that Belshazzar was not a king of Babylon. He was a co-ruler with his father thus he was in a kingly position and this makes him the king of Babylon.
Exactly what I said you have to do to make this right, change the definition of "king".
Nabonidus was unrelated by blood to Nebuchadnezzar thats true. But the only way he could have legally taken the throne was if he married into the royal family. Herodotus reported in the 5th century that the mother of the younger Labynetos (Nabonidus) was the queen Nitocris who is commonly thought to have been the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar. This makes Belshazzar Nebuchadnezzar*s grandson by marriage and in patriachal societies, it was perfectly accurate to call him Nebuchadnezzars son.
Exactly as I predicted, you make this work by changing the definition of "son" and "father" as written by Daniel. IIRC the geneology from Nebuchadnezzar to Nabonidus was even farther than that but that is somewhat irrelevant as Belshazzar is only the "son" and Nebuchadnezzar is only a "father" if you change those to mean something else. This is what I was talking about hiding behind fuzzy interpretations.
If you consider the slaughter of almost everyone in the city as a non violent take over, then i'm very surprised.
I'll concede this point if I am given a reference because I'll admit that I haven't looked to deeply into this point. But I have read some history that claims that Cyrus did not in fact sack Babylon city itself. I could be rememebering that wrong I'll admit but I'll also note that you are not refuting me with a reference either. My rebuttal does not hinge on this point so I'll easily conceed if shown wrong.
If Herodotus of the 5th century said that Nabonidus was the ruler and did not mention Belshazzar, how could a later writer have known about Belshazzar? If Herodotus had known of Belshazzars rulership, then surely he would have named him as such...if he didnt, why do you think a later writer would have known of Belshazzar?
Why not? Your making a negative claim. You are claiming that a 2nd century Daniel could NOT have known about Belshazzar. That is a very high burden of proof in a period with a lot of room to speculate. This isn't even the strongest evidence for an early Daniel yet it is the one that a lot of apologists hang on to because there is a sliver of historical support with the discovery of the tablets mentioning Belshazzar.
remember, Archeology has backed up Belshazzars position as a king so we know he definately was ruling Babylon along with his aged father.
Making him by definition NOT a king. That is why you change the definition.
This really adds weight to the bible as an historically accurate record of the past. It was more accurate then the famous and highly resprect Herodotus.
Well, there are a bunch of other things that Daniel got wrong that apologists like to dance around. I just wanted to address your Belshazzar claim. You conviently ignored my main point which is that you cannot prove that a 2nd century Daniel did not know about Belshazzar.
Overall, the argument for the origins of Daniel are very complex but if you take the weight of the evidence for an early dating and compare it to the weight of the evidence for a late dating, I believe that any objective observer would conclude that it was most certainly written late. If you want to discuss this in more detail perhaps we should take it to a different thread. I'll try to re-find my references to the Babylonian lineage that I mentioned in my previous post.
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Edited by Jazzns, : mixing up early vs late when talkin' all historical and such
Edited by AdminPD, : Off Topic
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