|
Daniel is Eaten Up In the Critics' Den
Daniel is Eaten Up In the Critics'
Den
Daniel 6:16
Following
Porphyry--
They tear him
asunder.
There is nothing in the book they accept
as authentic
They say it was written 165 B.C., days
of Maccabeans, 400 years after prophesied
They say
it belongs to the Pseudepigrapha, a Jewish religious book written under falsely
assumed name, as "The Book of Enoch," "The Testament of the 12 Patriarchs,"
which appeared in the 2nd and 1st centuries
B.C.
They say it is a religious novel, pure
fiction, a work of the imagination, cleverly put
together.
Its great facts are
fancies.
Its mighty miracles are feats of
imagination.
Its so-called prophecies are past
history clothed with the garb of prophecy, a favorite practice in
pseudepigraphic apocalypses.
They attack under
4 categories:
1. Historical. Full of
historical errors, inaccuracies,
anachronisms
2. Philological. Full of linguistic
irreconcilables, tell-tale, give-a-way
words
3. Prophetical. Full of prophetical
impossibilities
4. Doctrinal. Full of doctrinal
aberrations.
I. The Alleged Historical
Errors
1. Dan. 1:1--"third year of
Jehoiakim"- -No such deportation
Say contradicts
Jer. 46:2
But just the opposite. A Maccabean
fabricator with Jer. (Dan. 9:2) before him would not contradict Jer. in the
first sentence of his romance.
2. Dan.
1:1--"Nebuchadnezzar"--Not know to spell "r"
But
spelled it the way Kings, Chronicles, Ezra do, and Jeremiah half the time.
Babylonian cuneiform into Hebrew and
Aramaic.
3. Dan. 1:1--"King"--Calls him a
"king" before Nabopolassar his father died.
But so
does Jer. 27:6
Co-sovereign with his
father.
Explains Dan. 1:5 "three years" with Dan.
2:1 "second year"--full king
4. Dan.
1:3--Ashpenaz
A pure fiction. Name never found in
Babylon monuments. Then few years ago, the name found on a canonical brick
preserved in the British Museum.
5. Dan.
1:6--"Daniel"
No such person ever existed because
name not on monuments, historical records of Babylon.
But where name of Moses? . . . Jesus? . . .
Paul?
6. Dan.
2:2--"Chaldeans"
An immense anachronism, a dead
certain giveaway.
Not refer to astrologers,
magicians, until centuries later.
But Herodotus so
uses the term, lived in same century with
Daniel.
Daniel uses both meanings: the nation, 9:1;
astrologers, 2:2
Archaeology: a priestly caste in
Babylon of the god Bel who formed the elite of Babylonian
society.
7. Dan. 5:1--No
Belshazzar
Not a
king
5:11 Not son of or kin to
Nebuchadnezzar
5:30 Not slain. No such historical
incident
8. Dan. 5:31--no such person as Darius
the Median.
But somebody governed the city and
nation while Cyrus attended to other conquests and empire responsibilities. We
shall wait for further light from the spade of the
archaeologist.
9. Dan. 6:1--Empire never
divided in 120 divisions
10. Dan. 9:2--"books"
refers to a complete canon like was not made until centuries
later.
[If this so, how did this forgery get
in!]
II. Alleged linguistic
Irreconcilables
1. Dan. 1:3--"princes"; 1:5
"meat"
15 Persian
words.
All of these words in keeping with Daniel,
courtly diction
Rather an argument for early date.
Daniel in reign of Cyrus.
2. Dan. 2:4-7:27 in
Aramaic. Rest in Hebrew.
They say late Palestinian
Aramaic. Not early Babylonian.
Then Qumran. The
Aramaic of Maccabean period. Nothing like
Daniel.
3. Dan. 3:5--three Greek
words.
This all-decisive, they
say.
But for centuries, contact with Greeks. These
musical instruments.
III. Alleged
Prophetical Impossibilities
1. Dan. 2:31ff.
He does not know or prophesy of the Roman
Empire.
His four kingdoms are Babylon, Median,
Persian, Grecian.
the man
the 4 beasts
The
critics, having arrived at the firm conclusion that the book written in 165
B.C., they proceed to make everything fit in with their theory. They treat all
the visions of the book as past history. Since Rome in 165 B. C. was not a
world power (though an emerging one) therefore could not know of her
coming.
But this wrenching asunder the one
Median-Persian kingdom does great violence to chapter 8 when the unity of the
Median-Persian kingdom is definitely affirmed.
8:3, a ram, 2 horns; 8:5, a he
goat
8:20, the ram, 2 horns =
Median-Persian
8:21, the rough goat =
Greece
2. Dan.
11
The minutely accurate picture of the
Seleucid-Ptolemaic wars and the career of Antiochus Epiphanes is unthinkable to
the rationalistic critic.
3. In the three-fold
division of Heb. O. T. Scripture Law (Torah) or the Prophets
(Naviim)
but in the Hagiographa (the Kethuvim) but
in the canon.
In Qumran manuscripts, a part of
Daniel.
IV. Alleged Doctrinal
Aberrations
1. Dan. 12:2,
3
The
resurrection.
The kind of mind that would object to
that light from heaven.
So object to Job 19: 25,
26
2. Dan. 6:22 ] Gen. 22:11 Abraham ] Matt.
4:11 after temptation ]
28:12 Jacob's ladder ] Lk.
22:43 Gethsemane Angels ]
Ex. 32:34
Moses ] Matt. 28:2 tomb
Judges
13:15-21 Manoah Acts. 10: 3 Cornelius
I K. 19:5-7 Elijah 12:8-11 Peter 27:23
Paul
Gabriel Dan. 8:16 ] Lk. 1:13, 19, 26,
30, 35 ] Rev. 1:1 John
Dan. 9:21 ] Lk.
2:10, 13
Michael Dan. 10:13, 21 ] Jude 9,
Rev. 12:7
Dan.
12:1
Where do we stop in
this?
We dissolve the whole fabric of the Word of
God.
If no angels in Daniel, then no angels
anywhere else.
If no Gabriel in Daniel, then no
Gabriel anywhere else.
If no Michael in Daniel,
then no Michael anywhere else.
Correlation of Dreams and Visions in
Daniel
II VII VIII
Kingdoms
Represented
Head of fine gold Like a lion
with Babylon
The eagle's
wings
Times Chest and arms Like a bear Ram
with two horns Medo-Persia
of
silver
of
Belly and
thighs Like a leopard with Male goat with
one Greece
of bronze four wings and four
great horn, four horns
the wings and
little horn
Gentiles Legs of iron, feet
of Incomparable beast Rome
iron and
clay with ten horns and
little
horn
Stone that becomes Messiah and
saints Kingdom of
a great mountain receive
the kingdom God
Darius the
Mede
The tablet says further that the city
yielded to Gobryas--Cyrus not appearing for several weeks, and that Gobryas was
made govenor and appointed other governors, all of which corresponds to Darius
the Mede--Dan. 5:30; 6:1. Cyrus had other conquests to make and left a
subordinate king in Babylon, wisely appointing a Mede. Abydenus and Aeschylus
say that the first ruler of the city was a Mede.
|
