Daniel’s Date

Daniel in the Lions Den 1613-1615
by Peter Paul Ruben

Daniel is one of those books that attracts a certain amount of disdain from the intellectual class. The Liberal or Critical Scholars do not believe that the Bible is the authoritative word of God. Because the predictions of Daniel’s future were unparalleled, many cannot accept that he wrote it at the time that its internal evidence suggests. These scholars suggest that someone wrote Daniel after most of its prophecies had already occurred, a practice called “late-dating.” They hypothesize that the book of Daniel was written by someone else after the Maccabean revolt around 165 BC.

The problem is that Daniel’s predictions defy any late-dating. The book cannot be late-dated far enough. Daniel’s visions foresaw the four great empires of the western world. He provided a general description of the nature and length of time, those imperial powers would rule. Daniel’s knowledge of these successive empires, especially the Greek and Roman Empires, could only be from God or from a much later date than when Daniel was alive.

The internal evidence in the book of Daniel, is that the book was written by Daniel over his entire lifetime. By Daniel’s own testimony, his writings covered the time between Nebuchadnezzar, around 590BC, to Cyrus the Great, around 530BC. [Daniel 1:1 & 1:21]

The LXX/Septuagint

The existence of the Septuagint presents one of the most obvious problems for liberal scholarship. The LXX, was the first translation of the Hebrew Bible into another language (Greek). Tradition holds that seventy men from the twelve tribes of Israel met in Alexandria, Egypt, to translate the Bible at the behest of Ptolemy II 283 BC-246 BC. The Septuagint contains the Book of Daniel. The LXX was written 150 years before the Maccabean revolt (165 BC). This destroyed their arguments. Furthermore, a fragment of Daniel, dating roughly to within 50 years of Daniel’s internal date, was found among the cache of the Dead Sea Scrolls. See Also: New Light on the Book of Daniel from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

FYI: The Septuagint’s translation was a particular problem for the early church. The Jewish translators had interpreted the book more than translated it. Introducing their own fantasies about its meanings. So in time an update was required. Modern Greek versions of The Book of Daniel are not from the original Septuagint version.

Others

Jewish commentators have multiple interpretations of Daniel. All of them present stark disagreements with all church interpreters. The most glaring is that of Daniel 9:26  “seventy weeks” prophecy. The passage states the Anointed One will be “cut off” in the middle of the 70th week, which works out to around 30 AD. This obviously makes Jesus of Nazareth the only contender for the Messiah. So, they alter their hermeneutics so that the vision of the seventy-weeks is “spiritual,” not literal. They teach that national Israel was cut off, not Messiah. For this reason in the Hebrew Bible, Daniel is grouped with the writings, instead of the prophets.

FYI: The Hebrew Bible is in three sections, The Law, The Prophets, and The Writings. English translations have four sections The Law, History, Poetry, and the Prophets.

The Roman Catholic Church came up with the Futurist interpretation. They taught that a future Tribulation with a political Antichrist would cause terrible judgment from God to fall on the earth. This was in response to the Reformers who taught that the line of popes is the little horn of Daniel seven, the son of perdition for 2 Thessalonians, and the Antichrist of 1 & 2 John. To teach all of this, they created a Counter-Reformation. Their interpretation depends on a gap in the timeline of the 490 year prophecy between the fall of Rome to a future one-world government led by a political antichrist. Placing a gap of 2000 years between the legs of iron and the feet of iron and clay is nonsensical. This also pushed ten nations into the future, ignoring the entire history of post Roman Empire Europe. They expect a one-world government with a future Antichrist sitting on the throne in a restored temple in Jerusalem. They do all this by inserting “antichrist” into the text of Daniel 9.

FYI: The word antichrist is not mentioned in Daniel, nor for that matter in The Revelation.

This poor interpretation compresses the last 2000 years of clearly fulfilled history to a future event of 7 years. This Futurist view is a radical departure from the Protestant views of the last 500 years.

In the End

All these screwball ideas run into one great problem, and that is chapter 11. Chapter 11 gives a detailed list of the prominent monarchs of the Persian, Assyrian, and Egyptian empires from Darius the Mede to Julius Caesar. It minutely explains the ebb and flow of their power as they fought with each other for the control of the little nation of Judea. How dare he be so accurate?

The only problem with people seeing the truth is the complete lack of teaching “The History of the Western World” that now plagues education.

Back when people knew and were taughthistory,y the Great Historian Edward Gibbon, who was himself an unbeliever, explained the problem that those who do not believe that Daniel was a prophet have.

1. The author of the book of Daniel is too well informed of the revolutions of the Persian and Macedonian empires, which are supposed to have happened long after his death. He is too ignorant of the transactions of his own times. In a word, he is too exact for a prophet, and, 2. too fabulous for a contemporary historian.

Gibbon’s Letter to Bishop Hurd Hurd’s Works, vol 5. page 455