Episode 58 – Daniel – His Life and Times

Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. In John 14:6, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” The goal of Anchored by Truth is to encourage everyone to grow in the Christian faith by anchoring themselves to the secure truth found in the inspired, inerrant, and infallible word of God.

Script: (Bible quotes from the New Living Translation)

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God. ... Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility—young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace.

Daniel, Chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, New International Version

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. … “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ a spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 24, verses 4 through 6 and verses 15 and 16, New International Version

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VK: Hi! I’m Victoria K. Welcome to Anchored by Truth brought to you by Crystal Sea Books. I’m here today with RD Fierro, author, founder of Crystal Sea Books, and part-time climatologist. He checks the weather report and sets the thermostat in the office. And as you’ll hear from today’s life lesson sometimes he makes some slightly odd choices – about the thermostat that is. He doesn’t anything to do with setting the weather outside. Anyway, today on Anchored by Truth we are continuing examination of Biblical prophecy that we’re centering around the study of the book of Daniel. Now on our first two episodes in this series we took a general look at Biblical prophets and prophecy. But today, you say you want to get into the book of Daniel more specifically, right?

RD: Right. In our last couple of episodes we did a broad overview of the characteristics of Biblical prophets and prophecy. But today we want to begin a more detailed examination of one of the most remarkable of the Old Testament prophets – a man called Daniel. In part, I want to do this because the book of Daniel contains possibly the most remarkable prophecy in the entire Bible: his so called prophecy of the “seventy weeks.” That prophecy is so remarkable that we’re going to devote most of an entire episode to it. But to set the stage for a proper discussion of that prophecy, first we have to know something about Daniel himself and his life and times.

VK: Hmmm. So a bit of a tease I see. Well, before we get to the serious stuff let’s listen to the second of Crystal Sea’s Life Lessons with a Laugh about the story of Daniel and his friends. In our first Life Lesson we found out that Daniel thought that a clean conscience was more important than a clean plate. Today we’re going to see that Daniel’s friends were just as faithful to the Lord as Daniel was.

---- Life Lessons – Daniel 2 – The Lord of the Fire

VK: Ok. Well, we may have to rethink letting you be in charge of the thermostat. At any rate, Daniel and his three friends were part of the group of young men from the Jewish nobility that we heard about in opening scripture. Correct?

RD: Correct. But to be sure we understand what’s going on let’s set the stage in the history of ancient Israel. As most of our listeners know after the death of Solomon the nation of Israel was split into the northern kingdom called Israel and the southern kingdom called Judah. The northern kingdom contained 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel. Only Judah and Benjamin were part of the southern kingdom which was called Judah. The northern kingdom never really had a righteous king after the split, kept slipping further into idolatry, and was eventually conquered by the nation of Assyria.

VK: For all intents and purposes the northern kingdom disappeared from the pages of history in 722 B.C. when King Sargon II more or less deported all of the Israelites and resettled them in other parts of his empire. That’s why you sometimes hear references to the “lost 10 tribes of Israel.”

RD: Exactly. But the southern kingdom of Judah sort of alternated between good and bad kings until it too fell into such serious idolatry that the Lord disciplined it by allowing it to be conquered by the Babylonians. The Babylonians had displaced the Assyrians as the dominant power in the Mideast. And under a general named Nebuchadnezzar the Babylonians not only defeated the Assyrians but also the Egyptians. Well, Judah had been an ally of the Egyptians so around 605 B.C. Nebuchadnezzar besieged and captured Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar installed a vassal king in Jerusalem and deported some of the nobility and their children including Daniel. The Bible doesn’t tell us how old Daniel was but most scholars believe he was between 12 and 16 when he was sent to Babylon. He would live the rest of his very long life outside his homeland.

VK: And even though Nebuchadnezzar initially left Jerusalem more or less intact since the Hebrews kept creating trouble for him in 587 B.C. he more or less destroyed Jerusalem and deported almost all of the remaining people to Babylon and its surrounding region. Only the very poorest people were left in Judah. That began a period of captivity for the Hebrews which would only end after the Babylonians themselves were conquered by a combined force of the Medes and the Persians under a famous general named Cyrus. And interestingly enough Cyrus let the Jews return back to their land exactly as had been prophesied by Isaiah in Isaiah 44:28.

RD: Exactly. So this background starts to set up the framework for Daniel’s remarkable prophetic career. Thanks to God’s providence Daniel became a senior court official in both the Babylonian court and in the Persian court after Babylon was conquered. And he lived long enough to see the fall of one of the Mideast’s major empires, the Babylonians, and the rise of its successor, the Persians. So unlike most Biblical prophets all of Daniel’s prophecies were made outside Israel and in the context of him serving as a senior official – we might call him a bureaucrat today – in gentile governments. This makes him unique among Biblical prophets. Another thing that makes him unique is that much of his prophecy was not focused just on the nation of Israel and events or kingdoms that would affect it. A good bit of Daniel’s prophecy had to do with what we might refer to as world history. And since his prophecy did focus on empires and events that went considerably beyond just the Jewish nation or people we have abundant evidence from extra-Biblical sources of his remarkable prophetic accuracy. This had made the book of Daniel the subject of a wide variety of attacks throughout the years.

VK: And I think that’s a really important point that we need to explore a little further. If Daniel hadn’t uttered prophecies that were spectacularly accurate there would be no point in attacking the legitimacy of his book. After all, who would bother to attack a prophet who was demonstrably wrong? But Daniel’s prophecies were so accurate and precise that if he was who he claims to be – the recipient of information that could only come from God – then his book helps prove that God did supernaturally guide him in the book that bears his name. So when did Daniel write his book?

RD: Well, there are two different theories – a so called late date and the date that’s traditionally accepted by Biblical scholars. The traditional dating for the composition of Daniel is in the latter part of the 6th century B.C. The late date theory was first advanced by a Bible critic named Porphyry in the third century A.D. Porphyry thought that Daniel’s prophecies were so accurate that they couldn’t have been genuine so he came up with a hypothesis that the Book of Daniel was written in the 2nd century B.C. rather than earlier. Porphyry’s hypothesis was, in effect, that during the time of Jewish oppression under a king named Antiochus Epiphanes some Jewish writer wrote a sort of pious fraud to encourage the beleaguered Jews. To make his fraud inspirational this purported writer pretended Daniel had made up all these super-accurate prophecies. That would make his future prophecies about their coming deliverance more believable.

VK: So Porphyry’s hypothesis was that the writer of Daniel attempted to disguise history as prophecy. To make his fraudulent encouragement more inspirational the writer pretended that historical evens had been given originally as prophecies. That way the Jews of his day would be more likely to be inspired to continue their struggle against this wicked king because they could rely on Daniel’s prophecies of their upcoming deliverance?

RD: In essence, yes. And that criticism has been repeated in various forms throughout church history. Again, the criticism is absolutely essential otherwise skeptics would be forced to admit that the book of Daniel contains clear and compelling evidence of supernatural origin.

VK: So, is there any evidence that Porphyry was wrong and that the book of Daniel was actually composed during the 6th century B.C.?

RD: Now understand that right now we haven’t actually discussed the specific prophecies themselves. We’re going to do that in the next episode of Anchoed by Truth. But just to address the question of the proper dating of the book of Daniel, there is abundant evidence that the book of Daniel was written in the 6th century B.C. as opposed to the 2nd century.

VK: Such as...

RD: Well, let’s start with the fact that is well known and generally acknowledged that the book of Daniel was originally written in both Aramaic and Hebrew. Hebrew was, of course, the native language of ancient Israel and Judah. Aramaic was the language spoken in Babylon. So it would have taken someone who was fluent in both languages to be able to write a book that way. Think about how many of us could write a book in say both English and Spanish, or Italian and Russian, etc.

VK: I know a lot of people who have trouble writing in one language...

RD: So do I. Anyway, Daniel’s life story tells us that he would have been comfortable in both those languages. He had spent his early years in Judah so that was his native language and the Bible specifically says that one of the skills that was taught to the Jewish boys the Babylonians intended to use in their royal court was the Babylonian language, Aramaic. And after a lifetime in the service to the Babylonians and living in Babylonian territory Daniel would have been thoroughly familiar with Aramaic. So the compositional languages are consistent with what we know about Daniel. Also, the type of Aramaic and Hebrew that Daniel used are not consistent with the Aramaic and Hebrew of the late date assigned by Porphyry.

VK: How can we be sure?

RD: With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls we now have an abundance of documents that can be affirmatively dated to the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C. - the time of the purported fraud - so a comparison of the Hebrew and Aramaic in Daniel with those documents shows that Daniel’s language was older. In much the same way that if we found an American document that contained words like “groovy,” “23 skidoo,” or “Daddy-O” you would know that document was likely not written in the 21st century. Those words or phrases come from a different era. Same thing if a document contains the words “internet,” “smart phone,” or “political correctness.” If someone tried to pretend that document were written in the 1950’s or 60’s you’d instantly know it was a fake. Words come in and go out of style.

VK: Well a fraudulent writer in the 2nd century B.C. would have been writing long after Alexander the Great’s conquest of the Middle East. And it is well known that Alexander’s successors continued a pattern of Hellenizing the cultures that Alexander had conquered. So a document from the 2nd century should show a high level of Greek influence.

RD: A very good point. And while there are a few Greek loan words in Daniel there aren’t nearly as many as would be expected after 200 years of not just Greek influence but Greek dominance. And the Greek loan words that are there pertain mostly to musical instruments. There is enough evidence of contact between the Greek culture and some Middle Eastern societies even before Alexander’s conquest to explain them. Plus Daniel’s lengthy service at high levels in the Babylonian and Persian court would explain an elevated awareness of music and other cultures.

VK: Aside from language is there any other evidence of the authenticity of the book of Daniel?

RD: Well, Daniel’s content betrays someone who is writing outside the Jewish homeland. For instance, in Daniel 1:1, Daniel says that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in the 3rd year of King Jehoiakim of Judah’s reign. But another prophet, Jeremiah, says in Jeremiah 25:1 that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in the 4th year of Jehoiakim’s reign.

VK: That sounds like a contradiction or an error in the Bible. So who’s right, Jeremiah or Daniel?

RD: In an odd way they both are. You see the Babylonians calculated the reign of a king not from the day the king actually became king. They calculated reigns based on the 1st day of the new year following the day that the king actually took over. The Jewish system was to reckon a king’s reign based on the day the king actually took charge. So, Daniel, who had spent his adult lifetime in and around Babylon wrote his book and recorded his record using the system that would have been most natural to him at the time, the Babylonian system. Jeremiah, on the other hand, wrote entirely to the Hebrews and spent his entire life in Israel – except for a brief time at the end of his life when he was probably taken to Egypt against his will. So each writer wrote in the way that was most natural for them. They agree on the actual date within history but they record it slightly differently based on the customs of where they were living. You might call this an undersigned coincidence that demonstrates the authenticity of each writer’s record.

VK: Interesting. So in an odd way this actually argues against the book of Daniel being some kind of a pious fraud. I mean if the book of Daniel had been composed in the 2nd century B.C. and the writer was writing to a Jewish audience why would he have used an incorrect dating system right at the opening of the book. That would have caused his audience to doubt the content of the book rather than place trust in it.

RD: Exactly. Well, I’d like to cover one other point today that should settle the question of whether the book of Daniel is an authentic record of history and prophecy, at least for committed Christians. In our second scripture for today we heard Jesus refer to a prophecy given by Daniel as something that would alert his audience to a clear sign of immediate trouble. So, obviously Jesus trusted the book of Daniel and treated it as genuine. That should settle any questions about the veracity of Daniel at least for those of us who call ourselves Christians.

VK: That’s a great point and it again points to the unity of scripture. It is very common for New Testament speakers and writers to refer to either prophecy or observations from the Old Testament. This illustrates that the entire Bible is a single composition given for the purpose of telling a single story – the story of creation, fall, and redemption. Sounds like a perfect time to close with prayer. How about if today we pray that the Lord would always grant us the wisdom to be wise stewards of whatever resources which He has entrusted to our care?

---- PRAYER TO BE A FAITHFUL STEWARD

VK: We’d like to remind our audience that a lot of our radio episodes are linked together in series of topics so if they missed any episodes or if they just want to hear one again, all of these episodes are available on your favorite podcast app. To find them just search on “Anchored by Truth by Crystal Sea Books.”

If you’d like to hear more, try out crystalseabooks.com where “We’re not famous but our Boss is!”

(Bible Quotes from the New International Version)

Daniel, Chapter 1, verses 1 through 4, New International Version

The Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 24, verses 4 through 6 and verses 15 and 16, New International Version

https://www.adefenceofthebible.com/2018/10/14/alexander-the-great-conquered-the-known-world-but-he-spared-jerusalem-why/

https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/1293/the-arrival-of-the-king