There are two views on the book of Daniel. According to the
conservative Jewish/Christian view the book of Daniel was written in Mesopotamia
under the Babylonian conquest ca. 600BCE. According to the view of modern
history the book was composed ca. 167BCE and the alleged prophecies in the book
of Daniel are really examples of backdating where historical characters are “prophesied”.
Arguably, underlying the arguments for an early dating is
the assumption people would be very unlikely to make up a prophecy after the
fact, and people would be unlikely to believe and promulgate such a prophecy. This
assumption is commonly seen in arguments along the form: “it is simply assumed due
to a naturalistic bias that Daniel must be written after the events it describes”.
I clearly don’t think this is the case, however there are
ways to test the view the book of Daniel is a later invention: If this is the
case I would assume there should be other examples in the region of other such
back-dated prophecies. I tried to test this prediction using some simple googling
and was richly rewarded. Here is the general outline:
There are currently five prophecies from ancient Mesopotamia
known as the Akkadian prophecies (the Uruk prophecy, the dynastic prophecy, the
Shulgi prophecy, Marduk prophecy and Text A).
As Daniel they are all written as prophecies about the
future using phrases such as “A king shall arise..”, they all describe the
reign of future, unnamed kings, the kings can be identified (and clearly point
to) historical kings by the reference to various events ascribed to the kings. For
instance the dynastic prophecy predict the rise and fall of Babylon and Assyria
(like Daniel), the rise of the Hellenistic monarchies and Alexander the great
(like Daniel) and then part way with history by making a false prediction (that
Darius would be victories over Alexander).
The prophecies attempt to lend credibility to their claims
of the future by their “correct” predictions, for instance the Uruk prophecy,
after gaining credibility by a series of “correct” prophecies, predict a son of
Nebuchadnezzar II will rule the world forever (compare to Daniel).
Clearly a conservative Christian would reject the
historicity of the Akkadian texts. Why? What I find significant is the motif of
re-casting historical events as prophecies of the future to lend credibility to
a claim that is truly in the future was a well-known genre element in the region
when the bible was composed. Even on a superficial level the existence of many
such texts mean the probability point to Daniel too not being a prophecy about
the future – even without considering such a prophecy would break the natural
laws. The additional arguments for Daniel should be seen in this light. For
instance the reference of Josephus ca. 90CE to Daniel is sometimes used as
evidence – does that mean a Babylonian reference much later than the fact too
would be considered sufficient evidence for e.g. the Uruk prophecy?
sources:
http://books.google.dk/books/about/The_Continuum_History_of_Apocalypticism.html?id=7UlbWioOV7sC&redir_esc=y
http://books.google.dk/books/about/Ancient_Israelite_Literature_in_Its_Cult.html?id=FENzqidE2lsC&redir_esc=y
