Daniel 2 Doubts Wrapped Up in Daniel Book/Doctrine Doubts
The relevance of the second chapter of the book of Daniel to a believer in Seventh-day Adventist doctrine is entirely dependent upon the church’s twin doctrines, “The Sanctuary” and “The Investigative Judgment”.
Both of those doctrines depend heavily upon a view of the whole book of Daniel which has largely been abandoned by modern liberal scholarship, as noted below. Both of these doctrines build upon that abandoned interpretation of Daniel 2 which relied upon it as prophecy written before the events it predicted rather than as ‘history’, written after the events which it pretends to predict (the modern view). Both of those doctrines are unique to a single denomination within Christianity, the Seventh-day Adventist Church; but even within that church, there is no agreement as to the reliability of those very doctrines! The best summary of the controversy over those twin doctrines is found in three parts:
- Part One is here: truthorfables.com/Sanctuary_Cottrell.htm (If not available there, try here;)
- Part Two is here: truthorfables.com/Sanctuary_Cottrell2.htm (If not available there, try here;)
- Part Three is here: truthorfables.com/Cottrell_IJ_Recollection.htm (If not available there, try here.)
The Modern Scholarship Problems with Daniel Must Be Answered
“Perhaps the most infamous case of misdating and misrepresentation is the book of Daniel. It is a hotchpotch of stories, some in Aramaic, some in Hebrew; some (retrospectively) describing visions, some incorporating known Babylonian tales; some regarded as canonical, some apocryphal. It purports to have been written during the Babylonian Exile, but scholars now accept that it was written about 400 years later, between 167 and 164 BC, at least partly in Aramaic. It is propaganda compiled to encourage resistance to the Greek ruler Antiochus Epiphanes, who was then trying to crush the Jewish religion. It tells how Daniel and his associates refused to compromise on matters of faith during the Babylonian Exile, but displays ignorance of the period, and of the Persian succession, and uses Macedonian words that were unknown at the time it was supposedly written.”
(Beyond Belief: Two Thousand Years of Bad Faith in the Christian Church, Garnet (UK, 2011) ;http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/aa0_ot.htm#authorship)
“Old Testament authors often failed to appreciate that times change. They frequently projected titles, rituals and customs from their own time into the distant past. The author of Chronicles (third century BC) did it writing about the time of David (tenth century BC). The author of Esther (third or fourth century BC) did it writing about ancient Persia around the fifth century BC, and the author of Daniel (167-164 BC) did it writing about events 400 years earlier. In each case the author was trying to present his work as being much older than it really was.”
(Beyond Belief: Two Thousand Years of Bad Faith in the Christian Church, Garnet (UK, 2011); http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/aa0_ot.htm#errors)
“The introduction to the Prophets concludes that Daniel was not written by Daniel, but by a much later writer (167-164 B.C.) who wrote of things past as if they were yet in the fututre [sic].”
(The Jerusalem Bible, http://www.bible-researcher.com/jerusalem-bible.html)
“One of the chief reasons of the obscurity which surrounds the interpretation of Dan., ix, 24-27, is found in the imperfect condition in which the original text of the Book of Daniel has come to us. Not only in the prophecy of the seventy weeks, but also throughout both its Hebrew (Dan., i-ii, 4; viii-xii) and its Aramaic (ii, 4-vii) sections, that text betrays various defects which it is easier to notice and to point out than to correct. Linguistics, the context, and the ancient translations of Daniel are most of the time insufficient guides towards the sure restoration of the primitive reading. The oldest of these translations is the Greek version known as the Septuagint, whose text has come down to us, not in its original form, but in that given to it by Origen (died about A.D. 254) for the composition of his Hexapla. Before this revision by Origen, the text of the Septuagint was regarded as so unreliable, because of its freedom in rendering, and of the alterations which had been introduced into it etc., that, during the second century of our era, it was discarded by the Church, which adopted in its stead the Greek version of Daniel made in that same century by the Jewish proselyte, Theodotion. This version of Theodotion was apparently a skilful (sic) revision of the Septuagint by means of the original text, and is the one embodied in the authentic edition of the Septuagint published by Sixtus V in 1587.”
(Catholic Encyclopedia, “Book of Daniel”; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04621b.htm)
“Briefly stated, the following are their principal arguments:
As it is now found in the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Daniel contains historical references which tend to prove that its author is not an eyewitness of the events alluded to, as would be the case if he were the Prophet Daniel. Had this author lived during the Exile, it is argued, he would not have stated that “in the third year of the reign of Joakim, king of Juda, Nebuchadnezzer, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it” (Daniel 1:1), since this conflicts with Jeremiah, xxxvi, 9, 29.
He would not have repeatedly used the word “Chaldeans” as the name of a learned caste, this sense being foreign to the Assyro-Babylonian language, and of an origin later than the Exile; he would not have spoken of Balthasar as “king” (v, 1, 2 3, 5, etc., viii, 1), as the “son of Nebuchadnezzer” (v, 2, 18, etc.), since Balthasar was never king, and neither he nor his father had any blood-relationship to Nebuchadnezzer;
he would have avoided the statement that “Darius the Mede succeeded to the kingdom” of Balthasar (v. 31), since there is no room for such a ruler between Nabonahid, Balthasar’s father, and Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon;
he could not have spoken of “the Books” (Daniel 9:2-Heb. text), an expression which implies that the prophecies of Jeremiah formed part of a well-known collection of sacred books, which assuredly was not the case in the time of Nebuchadnezzer and Cyrus, etc.
The linguistic features of the book, as it exists in the Hebrew Bible, point also, it is said, to a date later than that of Daniel: its Hebrew is of the distinctly late type which followed Nehemias’ time; in both its Hebrew and its Aramaic portions there are Persian words and at least three Greek words, which of course should be referred to a period later than the Babylonian Exile.”
(Catholic Encyclopedia, “Book of Daniel”; http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04621b.htm)
From a very conservative scholar (one who ultimately argues for a view very friendly to the SDA interpretation), we find the admission that: “the book of Daniel is one of the most contested portions of the Old Testament, perhaps second only to the early chapters of Genesis.” (http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_daniel.html)