Hey Andrew, thanks for another thoughtful post. I agree with you that the beasts are not to be associated with religions as Knoch (and Zender) say, but I'm conflicted on the identity of the kingdoms. The reason being that the traditional interpretation of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome is held by all of those that hold to an early (i.e. authentic) date of Daniel, since Rome comes after the latest they suppose the book could have been written (167-164 BC). You make a lot of good points that identify the final kingdom with Greece, but at the same time I see a lot reasons why one could associate Greece with the third kingdom and Medo-Persia as the second. These are summarized in this article under the Four Kingdoms section:
I hate to link something from a source that is so wrong on everything else (e.g. preterism, the Trinity, free will, etc.), but he does make some interesting points, such as Greece and not Persia associated with bronze, Rome and not Greece associated with iron, as well as the fact that Daniel seems to portray the Medes and the Persians as one kingdom. Both sides make good points, and the interpretation of the fourth kingdom as Greece and Antiochus makes sense given the historical details. However, it bothers me that that is the same interpretation made by critical scholars / atheists to show that Daniel wasn't really predicting the future, since anyone during the Maccabean revolt could have written it that way, whereas they couldn't if Rome was the fourth kingdom. Furthermore, how would you deal with the Darius the Mede problem if Media and Persia are to be considered separate kingdoms? I have a bit of a hard time believing that God would have Daniel invent a fictional character in a book that is supposed to be historical narrative.
Interestingly, however, as I was writing this comment, I realized that the prediction of Daniel 7:11-12 would still constitute prophecy proper even if the book was written in 167-164 BC, since as you point out, the fate of these kingdoms wasn't known until 27 BC and 224 AD.
Overall, I'm honestly pretty torn over which interpretation is best, especially since there's so much overlap between Daniel and John's Revelation, so it can hard to see what is to be considered past fulfilled prophecy and what is future. Also, as I mentioned, I always thought the scheme of B, M/P, G, R was correct and therefore the traditional dating was accurate, meaning that supernatural prophecy is indeed possible, so like I said even though the facts you bring up are persuasive, it clashes a lot with the notion that I've kind of "built up" in my mind.
Apologies for the long comment, but I'll be interested to hear your thoughts and I'm looking forward to your next post.
Okay, I read through those articles. There were some interesting points that I wasn't aware of, especially Holding's point about the metals used by each kingdom.
However, I think that's taking the metaphor a bit too literally. In other ancient texts that I'm aware of, the gold/silver/bronze/iron 'ages' were a metaphor for times getting progressively worse and worse. Hesiod, who wrote before Daniel on any timeline (7th century BC), spoke of 'ages' of gold, silver, bronze, and iron, wherein the 'iron age' people "will not cease from toil and distress by day, nor from being worn out by suffering at night" (Hesiod, Works and Days 176-177).
So when Daniel talks about gold, silver, bronze, and iron empires, he's most likely saying that these empires will make the situation progressively worse and worse for the Jews (culminating in their persecution by Antiochus IV). He's not talking about the metals that they will use in their armor.
One major reason that I think the first three kingdoms should be identified with Babylon, Media, and Persia, rather than Babylon, Media/Persia, and Greece, is that there are no other ancient texts (that I'm aware of) that refer to Media and Persia as one combined empire.
In my post, I cited eleven different ancient sources (including two biblical and two non-canonical Jewish writings) that refer to a sequence of Assyria/Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece, or parts of that sequence. In contrast, I'm not aware of a single text that has a sequence of Babylon, Media/Persia, and Greece, except for much later authors like Josephus and the 'early church fathers', who wanted the end to come in their lifetime (during the Roman Empire) and so interpreted Daniel in this way. So if Daniel was prophesying that Media/Persia would be a single kingdom, he would really be *wrong* from the perspective of an ancient historian. That's my main reason for thinking that Media and Persia are the second and third kingdoms, respectively.
Also, if the fourth kingdom was Rome instead of Greece, then Daniel would again be *wrong* that it will crush all the former kingdoms (Dan 2:40; 7:7). Although Rome was certainly powerful, it failed to conquer most anything east of the Euphrates, which covers the heartlands of Babylon, Media, and Persia. However, Alexander the Great conquered all the way to the border of India, which certainly fits this description.
The second article you linked takes the usual dispensationalist view that the end-times kingdom will be a revived Roman Empire. I'll explain my interpretation of Revelation 17 in more depth in a future post, but for now, I'll just point out that John says that the end-times kingdom "was and is not and is to come" (Rev. 17:8; cf. 13:3), whereas the Roman Empire "is" in John's time (Rev. 17:10). So the final end-times kingdom can't be a revived Roman Empire, but must be a revived version of an earlier empire. In my opinion, it will be a revived *Macedonian* Empire, which also solves the issue of why Daniel 2 seems to say that Greece will be succeeded by the kingdom of God.
As for the issue of Daniel's dating: I'm currently divided between the early and late dating. Obviously I believe in the power of predictive prophecy, so that's not an issue for me. The linguistic evidence could maybe go either way. But Daniel *is* an apocalyptic text, and one of the hallmarks of ancient apocalyptic literature is ex eventu (after the fact) prophecy.
In my opinion, if God wanted to help His people during their persecution by inspiring an anonymous prophet to write this apocalypse, that's His prerogative. Since pseudonymity and ex eventu prophecy were an accepted part of apocalyptic literature, I don't think that would in any way diminish the divine inspiration of this book. The main issue with this late dating is that our Lord refers to Daniel as a prophet (Matt 24:15), and I don't like the idea that Jesus would have made such a fundamental error.
In any case, whether or not Daniel was written in 167-164 BC, there are certainly parts of his prophecies that are true predictive prophecy, such as the one you mentioned (Dan 7:11-12), as well as Dan 11:40-45, which I think is an accurate prophecy of the end of the Seleucid Kingdom (I'll discuss that in next week's post). So this wouldn't diminish the power of predictive prophecy.
I hope that helped to answer your questions! Sorry for the length of the reply...
Sorry! Just noticed your question about Darius that I didn't get to answer.
As I mentioned in footnote 8, I have a hard time reconciling the depiction of Darius the Mede in Daniel with the historical record. Some conservative scholars have suggested that Darius the Mede is another name used by Daniel for Cyrus of Persia, but that seems like a strained reading to me, because a straightforward reading of Dan 6:29 and 10:1; 11:1 is that Cyrus succeeded Darius (the Old Greek version of Dan 6:28 is even clearer, saying, "King Darius was gathered to his fathers and Cyrus the Persian succeeded to his kingdom.")
If Darius the Mede did not exist (at least not as he is described by Daniel), then he may have been added/invented to make the succession between Media and Persia more clear. But as you said, this is difficult to reconcile with the divine inspiration of the text. I've been wrestling with this issue myself, and I don't claim to have a definite answer. But the Bible never claims to be perfectly historically accurate (even in 2 Tim 3:16-17, which focuses instead on doctrine and morals) so this might not be a major issue.
On the other hand, if Darius the Mede did exist, then he must be the same as Cyrus of Persia, since there are no other suitable candidates. Cyrus never used this name on any documents or inscriptions, so it would have been used only by Daniel as an alternate name. Again, the only reason he would have done this (that I can think of) is to make the succession between Media and Persia clearer.
Literal books have been written trying to solve this problem, so I don't think I can solve it in any satisfactory way in a blog comment. But I hope it at least gave you something to think about :)
and he makes the case that the fourth kingdom is not only Rome but also a future kingdom based on Rome, which we find in Revelation. Again, some good points are made about the parallels between the two and how there is unfulfilled language, which is why I'm so confused about how the fourth kingdom seems to match both Greece as well as Rome, mainly depending on how one interprets the ten kings and the little horn.
Hey Andrew, thanks for another thoughtful post. I agree with you that the beasts are not to be associated with religions as Knoch (and Zender) say, but I'm conflicted on the identity of the kingdoms. The reason being that the traditional interpretation of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome is held by all of those that hold to an early (i.e. authentic) date of Daniel, since Rome comes after the latest they suppose the book could have been written (167-164 BC). You make a lot of good points that identify the final kingdom with Greece, but at the same time I see a lot reasons why one could associate Greece with the third kingdom and Medo-Persia as the second. These are summarized in this article under the Four Kingdoms section:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tektonics.org/af/danieldefense.php#4king
I hate to link something from a source that is so wrong on everything else (e.g. preterism, the Trinity, free will, etc.), but he does make some interesting points, such as Greece and not Persia associated with bronze, Rome and not Greece associated with iron, as well as the fact that Daniel seems to portray the Medes and the Persians as one kingdom. Both sides make good points, and the interpretation of the fourth kingdom as Greece and Antiochus makes sense given the historical details. However, it bothers me that that is the same interpretation made by critical scholars / atheists to show that Daniel wasn't really predicting the future, since anyone during the Maccabean revolt could have written it that way, whereas they couldn't if Rome was the fourth kingdom. Furthermore, how would you deal with the Darius the Mede problem if Media and Persia are to be considered separate kingdoms? I have a bit of a hard time believing that God would have Daniel invent a fictional character in a book that is supposed to be historical narrative.
Interestingly, however, as I was writing this comment, I realized that the prediction of Daniel 7:11-12 would still constitute prophecy proper even if the book was written in 167-164 BC, since as you point out, the fate of these kingdoms wasn't known until 27 BC and 224 AD.
Overall, I'm honestly pretty torn over which interpretation is best, especially since there's so much overlap between Daniel and John's Revelation, so it can hard to see what is to be considered past fulfilled prophecy and what is future. Also, as I mentioned, I always thought the scheme of B, M/P, G, R was correct and therefore the traditional dating was accurate, meaning that supernatural prophecy is indeed possible, so like I said even though the facts you bring up are persuasive, it clashes a lot with the notion that I've kind of "built up" in my mind.
Apologies for the long comment, but I'll be interested to hear your thoughts and I'm looking forward to your next post.
Hi Chris, thanks for commenting. I'll read those articles and get back to you.
DeleteOkay, I read through those articles. There were some interesting points that I wasn't aware of, especially Holding's point about the metals used by each kingdom.
DeleteHowever, I think that's taking the metaphor a bit too literally. In other ancient texts that I'm aware of, the gold/silver/bronze/iron 'ages' were a metaphor for times getting progressively worse and worse. Hesiod, who wrote before Daniel on any timeline (7th century BC), spoke of 'ages' of gold, silver, bronze, and iron, wherein the 'iron age' people "will not cease from toil and distress by day, nor from being worn out by suffering at night" (Hesiod, Works and Days 176-177).
So when Daniel talks about gold, silver, bronze, and iron empires, he's most likely saying that these empires will make the situation progressively worse and worse for the Jews (culminating in their persecution by Antiochus IV). He's not talking about the metals that they will use in their armor.
One major reason that I think the first three kingdoms should be identified with Babylon, Media, and Persia, rather than Babylon, Media/Persia, and Greece, is that there are no other ancient texts (that I'm aware of) that refer to Media and Persia as one combined empire.
In my post, I cited eleven different ancient sources (including two biblical and two non-canonical Jewish writings) that refer to a sequence of Assyria/Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece, or parts of that sequence. In contrast, I'm not aware of a single text that has a sequence of Babylon, Media/Persia, and Greece, except for much later authors like Josephus and the 'early church fathers', who wanted the end to come in their lifetime (during the Roman Empire) and so interpreted Daniel in this way. So if Daniel was prophesying that Media/Persia would be a single kingdom, he would really be *wrong* from the perspective of an ancient historian. That's my main reason for thinking that Media and Persia are the second and third kingdoms, respectively.
Also, if the fourth kingdom was Rome instead of Greece, then Daniel would again be *wrong* that it will crush all the former kingdoms (Dan 2:40; 7:7). Although Rome was certainly powerful, it failed to conquer most anything east of the Euphrates, which covers the heartlands of Babylon, Media, and Persia. However, Alexander the Great conquered all the way to the border of India, which certainly fits this description.
[see next comment...]
The second article you linked takes the usual dispensationalist view that the end-times kingdom will be a revived Roman Empire. I'll explain my interpretation of Revelation 17 in more depth in a future post, but for now, I'll just point out that John says that the end-times kingdom "was and is not and is to come" (Rev. 17:8; cf. 13:3), whereas the Roman Empire "is" in John's time (Rev. 17:10). So the final end-times kingdom can't be a revived Roman Empire, but must be a revived version of an earlier empire. In my opinion, it will be a revived *Macedonian* Empire, which also solves the issue of why Daniel 2 seems to say that Greece will be succeeded by the kingdom of God.
DeleteAs for the issue of Daniel's dating: I'm currently divided between the early and late dating. Obviously I believe in the power of predictive prophecy, so that's not an issue for me. The linguistic evidence could maybe go either way. But Daniel *is* an apocalyptic text, and one of the hallmarks of ancient apocalyptic literature is ex eventu (after the fact) prophecy.
In my opinion, if God wanted to help His people during their persecution by inspiring an anonymous prophet to write this apocalypse, that's His prerogative. Since pseudonymity and ex eventu prophecy were an accepted part of apocalyptic literature, I don't think that would in any way diminish the divine inspiration of this book. The main issue with this late dating is that our Lord refers to Daniel as a prophet (Matt 24:15), and I don't like the idea that Jesus would have made such a fundamental error.
In any case, whether or not Daniel was written in 167-164 BC, there are certainly parts of his prophecies that are true predictive prophecy, such as the one you mentioned (Dan 7:11-12), as well as Dan 11:40-45, which I think is an accurate prophecy of the end of the Seleucid Kingdom (I'll discuss that in next week's post). So this wouldn't diminish the power of predictive prophecy.
I hope that helped to answer your questions! Sorry for the length of the reply...
Andrew
Chris,
DeleteSorry! Just noticed your question about Darius that I didn't get to answer.
As I mentioned in footnote 8, I have a hard time reconciling the depiction of Darius the Mede in Daniel with the historical record. Some conservative scholars have suggested that Darius the Mede is another name used by Daniel for Cyrus of Persia, but that seems like a strained reading to me, because a straightforward reading of Dan 6:29 and 10:1; 11:1 is that Cyrus succeeded Darius (the Old Greek version of Dan 6:28 is even clearer, saying, "King Darius was gathered to his fathers and Cyrus the Persian succeeded to his kingdom.")
If Darius the Mede did not exist (at least not as he is described by Daniel), then he may have been added/invented to make the succession between Media and Persia more clear. But as you said, this is difficult to reconcile with the divine inspiration of the text. I've been wrestling with this issue myself, and I don't claim to have a definite answer. But the Bible never claims to be perfectly historically accurate (even in 2 Tim 3:16-17, which focuses instead on doctrine and morals) so this might not be a major issue.
On the other hand, if Darius the Mede did exist, then he must be the same as Cyrus of Persia, since there are no other suitable candidates. Cyrus never used this name on any documents or inscriptions, so it would have been used only by Daniel as an alternate name. Again, the only reason he would have done this (that I can think of) is to make the succession between Media and Persia clearer.
Literal books have been written trying to solve this problem, so I don't think I can solve it in any satisfactory way in a blog comment. But I hope it at least gave you something to think about :)
Andrew
Also, I found this article:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.evidenceunseen.com/bible-difficulties-2/ot-difficulties/daniel-amos/daniel-and-the-end-of-human-history-dan-2-7-8/
and he makes the case that the fourth kingdom is not only Rome but also a future kingdom based on Rome, which we find in Revelation. Again, some good points are made about the parallels between the two and how there is unfulfilled language, which is why I'm so confused about how the fourth kingdom seems to match both Greece as well as Rome, mainly depending on how one interprets the ten kings and the little horn.