Daniel — Lesson 1

Why Was Daniel Written & Why Does It Matter?

1. DANIEL IS AN UNUSUAL BOOK

A. Stories about lions’ dens and fiery furnaces that we have known since we were children.

B. Visions and prophecies that are some of the most difficult to unravel in all of the Bible.

C. Examples of faith, conviction, and the power of prayer.

D. Yet the book has been viscously attacked by most modern scholars who doubt its authenticity.

2. WHY WAS THE BOOK WRITTEN?

A. What did the book mean to its original audience?

1. Contrary to all of their expectations, God’s chosen people had been uprooted from their promised land and transported to Babylonian captivity.

2. Should not have been unexpected.

a) Had been warned by Isaiah, Micah, Jeremiah, and many other prophets (all the way back to Moses) that because of their flagrant apostasy and immorality, the city and the temple would be destroyed and they would be carried away in captivity.

b) 2 Chronicles 36:16 tells us why they were in captivity.

(1) “but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words, and scoffing at his prophets, till the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, till there was no remedy.

c) Jeremiah 5:15 tells us who led them away.

(1) Behold, I am bringing upon you a nation from afar, O house of Israel, says the Lord. It is an enduring nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language you do not know, nor can you understand what they say.

3. How did the world see these events?

a) The God of the Hebrews had been completely discredited. The mighty gods of Assyria and Babylon had burned his temple to the ground and led his people away in chains, and he was apparently powerless to stop them.

b) Of course, the truth was that those foreign people and their false gods were serving God’s purpose by bringing punishment upon his people. God was still totally in control and in charge even though it may have appeared otherwise.

(1) In Jeremiah 25:9, God refers to King Nebuchadnezzar as “my servant.”

4. The events in Daniel had a dual purpose:

a) To convince the faithful Israelites that God had not forgotten them – and that they should not forget him. One day they would be vindicated.

b) To show the pagan nations that God was truly sovereign and preeminent, and that any power they had was given to them by God and could be taken away anytime he desired.

3. WHAT IS THE HISTORICAL SETTING?

A. The book of Daniel opens with Nebuchadnezzar on the throne in Babylon after the deportation of the Jewish nobles to Babylon.

1. The Neo-Babylonian empire had begun in 626 BC when the Chaldean chieftan Nabopolassar captured Babylon and declared independence from Assyria.

2. Nabopolassar made an alliance with the Medes, and in 612 BC they captured the Assyrian capital of Ninevah.

3. The Assyrians and their Egyptian allies were completely defeated in 605 BC by Nebuchadnezzar, the son of Nabopolassar.

B. Nebuchadnezzar ruled for about 40 years. After Nebuchadnezzar’s death in 562, his sons and grandsons proved worthless. A revolution in 556 placed an outsider (Nabonidus) on the throne.

C. Nabonidus and his son Belshazzar were ruling jointly when Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians under Cyrus in 539 BC. Read Jeremiah 25:11–12.

1. “This whole land shall become a ruin and a waste, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years. Then after seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, says the Lord, making the land an ever-lasting waste.”

D. After this, the Near East was ruled by a succession of Persian rulers for about 200 years.

E. Late in the fourth century, the Persian empire was overthrown by the Greeks under Alexander the Great.

F. After Alexander, his kingdom in the Near East was split in two. The Ptolemies ruled Egypt and the Seleucids ruled Syria and Palestine.

G. Eventually, the Romans defeated both groups and took control.

H. Thus, we move in 600 years from the Babylonians to the Medes and the Persians to the Greeks and finally to the Romans.

1. Daniel talks about all four of these kingdoms. In addition, he talks about a fifth kingdom that would follow and that would never fall. That kingdom is the church.

I. We will have much more to say about the details of this history when we begin to unravel the prophecies in the book.

4. THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT DANIEL: TWO VIEWS REGARDING WHEN DANIEL WAS WRITTEN

A. The Early Date Position:

1. The book of Daniel was written in Babylon in the late sixth century B.C. by the prophet Daniel who had been taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar in 606 B.C.

2. The prophecies in the book are genuine and accurate.

B. The Late Date Position:

1. The book of Daniel was written in Palestine by an unknown Jew around 168 B.C. during the Maccabean period.

2. The prophecies in the book concerning events prior to 168 B.C. were written after the fact and hence are not genuine prophecies.

3. The other prophecies in the book were merely guesses of future events, many of which later proved to be inaccurate.

C. WHY IS THE LATE DATE VIEW SO POPULAR?

1. The Central Tenet of Liberal Theology:

a) Supernatural explanations of historical events are not acceptable. Any event that requires such an explanation is not historical.

2. Consider the following comments about the modern approach to Daniel:

a) “Such amazingly accurate predictions defy the possibility of merely human origin. If these prophecies were composed in the lifetime of the sixth century Daniel, they would compel our acceptance of special revelation from a transcendent, personal God. No anti-supernaturalist position can reasonably be defended if Daniel is a genuine book of prophecy composed in 530 B.C. or in the preceding years.”

3. Liberal theologians approach the Bible with the assumption that the supernatural is impossible. From this assumption it must (and does, logically) follow that Daniel is a fraud.

5. THE EVIDENCE FOR THE EARLY DATE VIEW

A. THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS SUPPORTS THE EARLY DATE VIEW

1. Did Daniel exist? Was he an actual historical figure?

a) Jesus refers to him in Matthew 24:15.

(1) So when you see the desolating sacrilege spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand).

2. Was Daniel a prophet? Did he speak from God?

a) Jesus calls him a prophet in Matthew 24:15.

3. Did Daniel predict specific events that occurred many years from the date in which he lived?

a) Jesus mentions a prophecy of Daniel in Matthew 24:15 that had not yet occurred but would occur during the lifetime of his listeners (see verse 34).

4. Isaac Newton (the greatest scientist who ever lived) said that “to reject Daniel is to reject the Christian religion.”

a) If we reject Daniel then we must admit that either Jesus was mistaken about Daniel or the gospel records are hopelessly flawed about what Jesus taught. Either way, Christianity tumbles.

5. The liberal critics simply discredit Christ as an authority on such matters.

a) One even wrote that “Christ neither would nor could be a critical authority.”

b) On the contrary, Jesus said that he had all authority in heaven and upon earth.

6. Daniel 7:13 is the main source of the title ‘Son of Man,’ which Jesus applied to himself many times as a Messianic title.

a) “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.”

7. Jesus said that Daniel was a prophet and Jesus said that part of what Daniel said was fulfilled after the Greek empire. Thus, the clear statements of Christ are in direct opposition to the modern scholars. Who are we to believe?

B. DANIEL IS ACCURATE REGARDING BABYLONIAN HISTORY

1. The historical accuracy regarding Babylonian history makes it difficult to believe that the book was written 400 years after its historical setting.

2. Daniel 4:30 gives an accurate picture of Nebuchadnezzar’s building activities.

a) “and the king said, ‘Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?’”

3. The East India House inscription, now in London, has six columns of Babylonian writing telling of the stupendous building operations which the king carried on in enlarging and beautifying Babylon.

4. How would a late author have known that Babylon’s greatness in the early sixth century was due to Nebuchadnezzar?

a) Modern scholars didn’t find about it until recently.

5. Nebuchadnezzar had Daniel’s friends thrown into a furnace yet Darius had Daniel thrown into a lions’ den. Why?

a) Darius the Mede was a fire worshiper. How would someone have known details like this in 168 B.C.?

6. Daniel uses the term Shinar to indicate Babylon in Daniel 1:2. This term was no longer used when the radical critics claim the book was written.

7. Daniel knew that it was impossible for anyone (even the king) to change a law of the Medes and Persians once it had been promulgated.

8. Consider the following conclusions by several commentators:

a) “Whoever is not the slave of preconceived opinions must confess when comparing [the first six chapters of Daniel] with the cuneiform monuments that they are really ancient and written but a short distance from the [time they describe].” (Lenormant)

b) “No Jew whose people had been living for centuries under Persian and Grecian rule could relate with such unconscious simplicity the actual condition of affairs in Babylon 370 years before his own time.” (J.D. Wilson)

c) “The author possessed a more accurate knowledge of Neo-Babylonian and early Persian history than any other historian since the sixth century B.C.” (Harrison)

C. DANIEL IS ACCURATE REGARDING NEBUCHADNEZZAR’S LOWLY ORIGIN

1. The description of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision in Daniel 4 ends with the following statement:

a) “This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” (4:17)

2. The lowly origin of Nebuchadnezzar’s family was otherwise unknown until an inscription made by his father Nabopolassar was found in which he was referred to as “the son of a nobody” (of non-royal birth), “insignificant,” “not visible,” “the weak,” and “the feeble.”

3. This kind of knowledge (the lowly origin of Babylon’s greatest king) would have quickly been forgotten – but the author of Daniel knew about it.

4. The decrees of the Babylonian kings in Daniel are remarkably similar to those found inscribed on ancient monuments. How would a Jewish writer produce such an accurate record 400 years after the fact?

D. THE FOURTH EMPIRE IN DANIEL IS THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

1. The visions in chapters 2 and 7 speak of four empires.

a) The late date view:

(1) The fourth empire is Greece.

(2) The third is Persia.

(3) The second is Media.

(4) The first is the Chaldean empire.

2. This late date view is very widely held today, but it falls apart when you read Daniel. One commentator has said that this viewpoint is the weakest part of the late date theory.

a) There is no evidence that Daniel ever considered the Medes and Persians as separate empires whereas there is ample evidence that Daniel considered Medo-Persia to be a single empire.

b) In Daniel 8:20, we find a single ram with two horns representing the kings of Media and Persia. In 8:21, a shaggy male goat (Greece) with a prominent horn (Alexander the Great) tramples the ram.

c) Also, in chapter 5 when we read about the handwriting on the wall, the last word written is Peres which is derived from the word meaning “to divide” but also is a reference to Persia. That is, Persia was depicted as conquering the Babylonians – making Persia second and not third.

3. If we can show (and we can) that the fourth empire is Rome then all of the arguments by the liberals to remove prophecy from the book fall apart.

a) Copies of Daniel have been found that predate the Roman empire and Daniel made specific prophecies about Rome.

4. Daniel predicts that the Messiah and his kingdom would appear during the fourth empire, which of course it did if we take the fourth empire to be Rome.

a) The liberals say that again Daniel was mistaken because Jesus did not appear until after the Greek empire!

b) Jesus in Matthew 24 said that some things that Daniel had written had not yet been fulfilled (but would be fulfilled within a generation). If Greece is the fourth empire, then Jesus must have been wrong.

E. THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS SUPPORT THE EARLY DATE VIEW

1. Seven copies of Daniel dating from the Maccabean period have been found in three of the caves at Qumran. This makes it very unlikely that Daniel was written during the Maccabean period.

2. The late date group are forced to believe that the Essenes at Qumran had near original copies of Daniel to retain their late date theory. A simpler explanation is that Daniel was written much earlier.

3. An honest scholar would accept the clear evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the modern scholars cannot accept it.

a) They literally are unable to believe their own eyes because to do so would be to accept the supernatural source of the Bible.

F. THE BOOK OF EZEKIEL SUPPORTS THE EARLY DATE VIEW

1. In Ezekiel 14:14 and 14:20, Daniel is listed with Noah and Job as an example of righteousness.

2. Ezekiel 28:3 says ‘Behold, you are wiser than Daniel.’

3. The representation of Daniel as righteous and wise fits perfectly with his description in the book of Daniel.

4. Critics say that Ezekiel was not referring to Daniel but to Dan’el – a famous character from Ugaritic mythology.

a) Does it seem reasonable to believe that a pious Jew would refer to a legendary pagan figure as an example of wisdom and righteousness?

b) Dan’el was an idol worshipper who offered blood sacrifices to Baal for weeks at a time. He was a vengeful drunkard who convinced his daughter to commit murder.

5. But Daniel was a contemporary of Ezekiel.

a) This seems even more natural since then Ezekiel would use ancient and current examples to show the people that God was still at work among them.

b) One commentator said that Noah, Job, and Daniel are spaced about 1500 years apart. Thus, Ezekiel may have given an example of righteousness from three different eras.

G. JOSEPHUS SUPPORTS THE EARLY DATE VIEW

1. In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus relates a story which if true would prove that the book of Daniel existed during the time of Alexander the Great (330 B.C.).

a) Alexander was angry that the Jews would not give him their allegiance so he went to Jerusalem to punish them.

b) Jewish priests met him and showed him in the book of Daniel how God had said that he would defeat the Persians.

c) This pleased Alexander so much that he spared Jerusalem.

2. Josephus wrote:

a) “The high priest then showed Alexander the passages in the prophecy of Daniel indicating that a Greek would destroy the empire of the Persians. Alexander, of course, accepted the prophecy as a reference to himself, and declared that God had ordained him to conquer Persia, which he proceeded to do. Furthermore, Alexander not only refused to execute any sanctions against Israel but bestowed upon that nation all kinds of favors and benefits, which was contrary to his usual custom.”

3. History confirms that Alexander marched near Jerusalem on his way to Egypt and that he treated the Jews kindly.

a) How else can we explain why Alexander spared Jerusalem the ravages that he inflicted upon Tyre and Sidon?

4. The consequence of this story is that it means that Daniel was known long prior to the year 334 B.C. and that even Alexander himself recognized that he was the one Daniel said would destroy the Medo-Persian power.

5. What do the critics say about this?

a) They reject Josephus whenever he contradicts their naturalistic world view, but they enthusiastically accept him on virtually everything else.

b) They never give the Bible the benefit of the doubt. It is assumed to be wrong right from the start.

H. THE USE OF A TWO-HORNED RAM TO SYMBOLIZE MEDO-PERSIA SUPPORTS AN EARLY DATE.

1. After Alexander the Great visited Egypt, he was forever depicted on coins with his head adorned with the ram’s horns of Amen-Ra.

2. A thousand years later, Mohammed called him ‘Alexander, the lord of the two horns.’

3. One commentator has written:

a) “It is impossible to believe that the writer of Daniel could, in the face of universal attribution of the two ram’s horns to Alexander, represent Persia, the power he overthrew, as a two-horned ram (Daniel 8:3,20) unless he had written before the expedition into Egypt.”

6. RESPONSES TO LATE DATE ARGUMENTS

A. THE CLAIM THAT DARIUS THE MEDE NEVER EXISTED

1. In Daniel 5:30–31 we read

a) “That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain, and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.”

2. One critic has written that “the references to Darius the Mede in the book of Daniel have long been recognized as providing the most serious historical problem in the book.”

3. The late-date proponents claim that:

a) The author of Daniel believed that a Median kingdom, under Darius, conquered Babylon and subsequently gave way to the Persian empire under Cyrus.

b) It is known that Babylon fell directly to Cyrus and the Persians.

c) The argue that Darius the Mede never actually existed but was a confused reflection of a later Persian ruler, Darius I (Hystaspes).

4. Five reasons why this late-date view is wrong:

a) Reason #1: The book of Daniel never claims that Darius was the king of Media but only that he was of Median descent.

(1) To say that Napoleon was a Corsican does not mean that Napoleon was the king of Corsica.

b) Reason #2: The author of Daniel says that Darius and Cyrus had different ancestries (Cyrus the Persian and Darius the Mede), NOT that they ruled separate kingdoms.

c) Reason #3: In Daniel 6:12 Darius is asked “Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or man except to you, O king, would be thrown into the lions' den?” and he answers “The decree stands – in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.”

(1) If Darius ruled an independent kingdom of Media then why was he subject to the law of the Persians?

d) Reason #4: Daniel’s interpretation of the handwriting on the wall in chapter 5 indicates that the Persians would be the main element of the empire that succeeded the Babylonians.

(1) The author clearly says that Babylon would be conquered not by the Medes alone but by the Medes and the Persians with the Persians playing the greater role.

e) Reason #5: The vision in chapter 8 depicts a combined Medo-Persian empire as a single ram with two horns.

(1) The horn depicting Persia comes up last, but BEFORE the ram sets out to conquer.

5. Just because the name ‘Darius the Mede’ has not been found in any ancient inscriptions does not mean that he did not exist.

a) Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

b) The critics made similar claims about Belshazzar and Sargon and archaeology later proved them wrong.

6. Who then was Darius?

a) Darius the Mede was probably an early governor of Babylon under Cyrus. The references to Darius in Daniel do not say that he ruled the Persian empire – only that he took control of the conquered Chaldean empire.

b) It was a well known practice of Cyrus to appoint Medes to high positions in order to foster goodwill and loyalty.

B. THE CLAIM THAT THE TYPE OF ARAMAIC USED IN DANIEL INDICATES A LATE DATE

1. Daniel 2:4b through 7:28 is in the Aramaic language. (The other parts of the book are written in Hebrew.)

2. It has been claimed that the form of Aramaic used was the type used in the 3rd century B.C. and not the type used in the 6th century B.C.

a) This argument fell apart in 1929 when a farmer discovered what were later called the Ras Shamra tablets inside an underground passage.

b) The Aramaic in these tablets is similar to that in Daniel and they date back to 1400 B.C.

3. Why were two languages used?

a) It is NOT unique to Daniel. In the book of Ezra, four chapters are written in Aramaic.

b) Some critics have claimed that there were two authors, but even most of the liberals reject this since the message of the book is clearly woven throughout the entire work.

c) One commentator has written:

(1) “Even critical scholars admit that only one author produced Daniel. The identity of the author appears from the unity of the plan, the relation of various parts to each other, the gradation of the oracles from the uncertain to the certain, the remarkable uniformity of ideas, images, forms, symbols, and that even in two languages there is a remarkable similarity of style.”

d) Why then are two languages used?

(1) A much better explanation than two authors is that there were two audiences – which we know was true.

(2) One commentator has written:

(a) “The Aramaic chapters deal with matters pertaining to the entire citizenry of the Babylonian and the Persian empires, whereas the other six chapters relate to peculiarly Jewish concerns and God’s special plans for the future of his covenant people.”

4. Interestingly, the Hebrew portion of Daniel contains no Greek words.

a) This seems very odd if Daniel had been written after nearly 200 years of Greek rule in Palestine.

b) The political terms in Daniel are largely Persian, which one would expect if the book had been written during the reign of Cyrus.

C. THE CLAIM THAT THE USE OF PERSIAN WORDS IN DANIEL INDICATES A LATE DATE

1. Present in the Hebrew and especially in the Aramaic parts of Daniel are several words of Persian origin.

2. The radical critics assert that the Persian language did not penetrate the Aramaic of Babylon until long after Cyrus’ conquest.

3. The Persian term ‘satrap’ is used throughout Daniel as if it were a Babylonian title. The critics say that such usage points to a much later date.

a) It is possible that the term had become a Babylonian title due to the Persian influence that already existed.

b) Also, if Daniel wrote the book after the fall of Babylon then he might have substituted Persian terms in place of the older Babylonian terms.

4. This argument can be turned against the late-date crowd.

a) The first Greek translations of Daniel appeared around 100 B.C. (Septuagint and Theodotian)

b) Many of the Persian words in these translations were MISTRANSLATED, which seems odd if the book had been written only 65 years earlier.

c) Clearly, the words had been forgotten or had changed meaning since the time when Daniel was written, which points to an early date for the book.

D. THE CLAIM THAT THE USE OF GREEK WORDS IN DANIEL INDICATES A LATE DATE

1. Daniel 3:5 (in the Aramaic section) contains three words of Greek origin, all are musical terms.

2. It is claimed that such words could only have been used after Greek influence had spread throughout Asia after the conquest by Alexander the Great – again indicating a late date.

3. How much cultural spread does it require to learn three new words?

a) If the book had been written 400 years later, then wouldn’t we expect to find many Greek words instead of only two?

4. There are 20 Persian words and three Greek words in Daniel.

a) Does this make sense if Daniel had been written during the Greek empire and long after the Persian empire?

b) (By 170 B.C., a Greek speaking government had controlled Palestine for 160 years.)

5. One author has said “It is the fewness of the Greek words, coupled with the fact that they are only the names of musical instruments, that must prove fatal to the critics’ theory that the book was written in 165 B.C.”

6. Anyway, experts now agree that Greek culture had penetrated the Near East long before the Neo-Babylonian period. The terms may have been introduced by Greek traders before the rise of the Persian empire.

a) The Elephantine papyri is a fifth century Aramaic document that contains a number of Greek words.

b) It is significant that the terms are all musical terms. Such terms are frequently borrowed when the instruments they describe become known.

7. TO SUMMARIZE OUR POSITION

A. The book of Daniel was written by Daniel in Babylon during the late sixth century B.C.

B. That means that the prophecies it contains are genuine and accurate, and further they are proof of the Bible’s inspiration.

C. The late date theory is only promoted by those who deny the inspiration of scripture, and we have shown that their arguments are flawed.

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