Hi Earnest,
aChristian is quite capable of answering the questions you've raised, but I want to add my two cents.
Daniel 1:1 has perplexed Bible scholars for centuries. Many explanations have been offered, but few seem to jibe completely with all known data. The simplest explanation seems to me simply to take the text at face value, while recognizing that Daniel, as a Babylonian official, would likely have used the Babylonian accession-year system of reckoning the reigns of kings, with Nisan-Nisan dating -- not just for Babylonian kings but for Jewish kings. However, in other Bible books written by Jews living in Palestine, the writers would use the non-accession year system of reckoning the reigns of kings, almost certainly with Tishri-Tishri dating (however, a number of scholars, such as Edwin Thiele writing in The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings, hold that the Jews used different methods at different times). Thus the "third year of the kingship of Jehoiakim" mentioned in Daniel 1:1 would correspond to "the fourth year of Jehoiakim" mentioned in Jeremiah 46:2.
If Daniel and a small number of other Jews were taken captive to Babylon shortly after Nebuchadnezzar defeated the Egytians at the battle of Carchemish in late spring of 605 B.C. and began conquering the various Egyptian vassal states (of which Judah was one), then that would have been in Nebuchadnezzar's accession year, which ended the day before Nisan 1, 604 B.C. After Daniel and company were captured, they were taught the ways and language of Babylon, according to the rest of Daniel 1, and at the end of three years they were found to be outstandingly educated and competent. According to Daniel 2:1 Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream which Daniel was called upon to interpret and did so with such success that Nebuchadnezzar appointed him to a high position (Dan. 2:48). Apparently this occurred during the three years during which Daniel was being educated, since Dan. 2:1 indicates that the dream occurred in Nebuchadnezzar's second year, which would have been sometime between Nisan 1, 603 and Nisan 1, 602 B.C. According to Dan. 1:17-21, by the end of the three years of education, Daniel was already known to have "understanding in all sorts of visions and dreams", which indicates that the incident related in Daniel 2 occurred during that period of education. All of this goes to prove that Daniel was in Babylon long before the destruction of Jerusalem, which proves in turn that the servitude of the Jews to Babylon began about 18 years before the destruction of Jerusalem -- in direct contradiction with the Watchtower Society's claims.
The standard way of stating a date in ancient times was to reference the year of reign of some king, as in Daniel 1:1: "In the third year of the kingship of Jehoiakim", such and such happened. I know of no examples in the Bible where this convention is violated. The only places that the Watchtower Society claims the convention is violated is in Daniel 1:1 and 2:1. They do this because it causes major problems for their chronology, as aChristian pointed out. In view of this convention, the most natural understanding of Dan. 1:1 and 2:1 is to take them at face value. Thoroughly unnatural and ever changing understandings have been given by the Watchtower Society since about 1900.
With the above discussion in mind, I can now comment on your quotations and commentary on Daniel 1:1, 2 and 2 Kings 23:36 - 24:13.
: From a comparison of these two accounts would you say Daniel was referring to the third year of Jehoiakim's reign or the third year as servant [tributary king] to Nebuchadnezzar ?
The former. Since Daniel almost certainly used the accession-year system of dating kings' reigns, his mention of the "third year" of Jehoiakim would correspond with the mention of the "fourth year" in Jer. 46:2. This is supported by a natural reading of Dan. 2:1.
You quoted parts of 2 Kings, but left out some parts by using ellipses. One part that you left out, 24:2-5, contains statements critical to a proper understanding of the timing of Jehoiakim's being a tributary king to Nebuchadnezzar. Let me quote the relevant verses:
2 Kings 24:1-2: "In his days Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon came up, and so Jehoiakim became his servant for three years. However, he turned back and rebelled against him. 2 And Jehovah began to send against him marauder bands of Chaldeans and marauder bands of Syrians and marauder bands of Moabites and marauder bands of the sons of Ammon, and he kept sending them against Judah to destroy it, according to Jehovahs word that he had spoken by means of his servants the prophets."
Now, it is obvious that if Jehovah began to send marauder bands of four different nations against the Jews, and that he kept sending them against the Jews, this required a period of at least several years. If Jehoiakim became Nebuchadnezzar's "servant" for three years beginning when he first laid seige to Jerusalem and took Daniel and company captive in the summer of 605 B.C., then he would have rebelled against Nebuchadnezzar in about 602 B.C. Since secular history tells us that Nebudadnezzar's second foray against Jerusalem ended in early 596 B.C. with the capture of Jehoiachin, and the Bible tells us that Jehoiachin ruled for only a bit more than three months, Jehoiakim must have been killed in late 598 B.C. This gives a period of some four years during which the "marauder bands" could have come up against him. On the other hand, Watchtower chronology claims that Jehoiakim became Nebuchadnezzar's vassal in his eighth year, and continued until his eleventh year, when he rebelled. But it was in Jehoiakim's eleventh year that he was killed, which leaves precious little time for Jehovah to begin sending all those marauder bands against him, and to keep sending them. The phrasing "Jehovah kept sending" strains the Watchtower interpretation beyond the breaking point. This is partly why I have to reject it.
: Now let's think about this a bit further. Nebuchadnezzar brought the utensils [and all the princes and all the valiant, mighty men] to Babylon in the eighth year of his being king.
Right, which would have been in early 597 B.C. Jehoiachin was captured and brought to Babylon at this time.
: So would you say it is manipulating the scriptures to suggest that when it later refers to him having a dream in his second year, it is probably dating from some event other than the beginning of his reign ?
Yes, because "manipulating" means attributing a poorly justified and unnatural meaning to the scriptures. Unless you can get around the above information, aChristian's comment stands.
: The alternative explanation is that Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jehoiakim on a previous occasion and took utensils of the house of God and brought sons of the royal offspring and of the nobles to Babylon...but without a breath of it in the account of Jehoiakim's kingship!?...strange teachings indeed.
What do you mean, "without a breath of it"? The several accounts of Jehoikim's doings are perfectly in line with the understanding of Daniel 1, 2 that I describe above. Please explain.
The first deportation of captives was apparently a very small one, virtually a token. Since Nebuchadnezzar began conquering all of the defeated Egypt's vassal states immediately after winning the battle of Carchemish, but was not in a position to begin massive deportations and sackings until a year or more later, it is quite reasonable that he took only a token number of captives, such as Daniel and company, along with a token amount of temple utensils and so forth, at first. In view of the defeat of powerful Egypt, Jehoiakim would have immediately capitulated. This would have precipitated a crisis in Judah, and this crisis is obviously (to me, at least) what is described in Jeremiah 25. The chapter begins with the "fourth year of Jehoiakim" and "the first year of Nebuchadnezzar", i.e., in Jewish dating terms, the time period immediately after Nebuchadnezzar humiliated Jehoiakim by taking captives and making him a vassal. Were this not the case, why would the chapter begin with such an unusual double dating? The chapter goes on with Jehovah's malediction against not only Judah, but all of the nations round about, and his prediction that all of those nations would be "devastated" by the Babylonians, and that the latter would reign supreme for "seventy years". Smack in the middle of chapter 25, Jeremiah indicates just what sort of "devastation" was to be even more sorely visited upon the Jews and other nations (Jer. 25:17, 18):
17 And I proceeded to take the cup out of the hand of Jehovah and to make all the nations drink to whom Jehovah had sent me: 18 namely, Jerusalem and the cities of Judah and her kings, her princes, to make them a devastated place, an object of astonishment, something to whistle at and a malediction, just as at this day...
Clearly, when Jeremiah wrote this material, he was still in Jerusalem, and yet he described his city as "a devastated place, an object of astonishment, something to whistle at and a malediction". How could Jeremiah have described Jerusalem as a "devastated place" unless Nebuchadnezzar had already lay seige to it and conquered it? In other words, this passage proves that a natural reading of Dan. 1:1 is correct, vis a vis my above discussion.
Of couse, the above discussion barely scratches the surface of the available evidence. For a much broader discussion you ought to read Carl Olof Jonsson's The Gentile Times Reconsidered. But note that the above material I've covered is independent of Jonsson's analysis.
You wrote the following, which I don't understand the reason for:
: Furthermore, just prior to mentioning "the second year of the kingship of Nebuchadnezzar" (2:1), Daniel refers to "the first year of Cyrus the king" (1:21). Do you think he was referring to the year Cyrus became king or is he dating it from Babylon's overthrow ?
In view of our previous discussions, your questions are ambiguous, and I'm not sure that your understanding is complete. According to the view I have given above, Daniel would have dated Nebuchadnezzar's reign and Cyrus' reign according to Babylonian standards, so that Cyrus' "first year" would have been from Nisan 1, 538 B.C. to Nisan 1, 537 B.C. But for his "first year" to begin on that date, his accession year would have had to have been mostly during 539 B.C., and of course, that would have included the day of Babylon's overthrow, namely, early October, 539 B.C. So, "the year Cyrus became king" and the year of "Babylon's overthrow" are the same. There is no "or" about it.
The following passages from Watchtower publications seem to support my contention that Daniel used the accession year system of dating, which contention you can see implicitly in my previous posts:
*** si p. 139 Bible Book Number 27-Daniel ***
6 The Jews included the book of Daniel, not with the Prophets, but with the Writings. On the other hand, the English Bible follows the catalog order of the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate by placing Daniel between the major and the minor prophets. There are actually two parts to the book. The first of these, chapters 1 to 6, gives in chronological order the experiences of Daniel and his companions in government service from 617 B.C.E. to 538 B.C.E. (Dan. 1:1, 21)*** kc p. 189 Appendix to Chapter 14 ***
However, there is no reasonable way of stretching Cyrus first year from 538 down to 535 B.C.E. Some who have tried to explain away the problem have in a strained manner claimed that in speaking of "the first year of Cyrus" Ezra and Daniel were using some peculiar Jewish viewpoint that differed from the official count of Cyrus reign. But that cannot be sustained, for both a non-Jewish governor and a document from the Persian archives agree that the decree occurred in Cyrus first year, even as the Bible writers carefully and specifically reported.-Ezra 5:6, 13; 6:1-3; Daniel 1:21; 9:1-3.
: I have to say that far from obscuring anything it seems to me that the WTS understanding of what these particular time periods refer to is the most obvious meaning of a straight-forward reading of the scriptures.
In view of my discussion above, I think you will have to change your opinion.
I really think that you need to get hold of Jonsson's book at this point. It will clear up many points of difficulty. You'll find that, in contrast with Watchtower writings on this subject, it is clear, to the point, and does not shy away from tackling difficult scriptural problems.
AlanF