When was the Book of Daniel written?

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So there is external evidence that Nitocris married Nabo & that she was the daughter of Neb.

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Where is the evidence that Nitocris was the daughter of Neb ? Herodotus mentions her as the mother of Bel, but doesn't identify her father.

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admittedly, the evidence is patchy as you would expect. But it is still there in bits and pieces and many have been led to conclude that Nitocris, who was named as the mother of Belshazzar, was a daughter of Neb because she was a queen.

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Yet she could also be queen, just by being married to the king.

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Here is an intersting list of daughters of babylon where details of Nitocris is found

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(Corrected use of URL tag - PAK)Yet it seems to be mainly more speculation with regard to "Nitocris". Not all of which is even compatible with your view (e.g. it suggests that Nitocris might have been born 20 years before Nebuchadnezzar - hardly possible if she was his daughter !). In fact it suggests that she was queen prior to Nebuchadnezzar's reign.

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The Ancient Dictionary Page 1205 - look halfway down the page on the left side column

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That says that most "modern" writers supposed her to be the wife of Nebuchadnezzar. (Even if this were evidence it clearly contradicts your assertion that she was his daughter !).So, where is the evidence ?

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there are two nebuchudnezzars
Neb I & Neb II

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Neb II is the one i'm refering, but i apologize, i dont think i made that clear at all

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So where is the evidence that Nitocris was the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar II ?And how does that explain why your first response to my request for that evidence was to refer me to sites which suggest that she was his wife or even the wife of his predecessor ?

A couple of extra notes from the wikipedia page:The scholars that dispute Jamnia argue that the canon was not closed even then, thus a 400 BC closure for the entire Tanakh is out of the question.Sirach's failure to mention Daniel in 180 BC is also evidence against the early date, and is firmly against the idea that Daniel was considered canon at that time.

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in the book 'Nabonidus and Belshazzar' by P Dougherty on page 79 his research suggests that Nabonidus was the husband of Nitocris, Nebuchadnezzar's (II) daughter by his wife of the same name.

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On what evidence does he base this claim ? Remember you claimed to have evidence,so it is evidence I want to see, not opinions.

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You know as well as I do that the evidence for ancient babylon is very fragmented and there are only dribs and drabs of information. Until something gets unearthed, like Belshazzar was, we are only going by what is currently available via ancient writers.

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Which is no excuse for not producing evidence you claimed to have. If you don't have it you shouldn't claim that you do.

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from where i'm sitting, Daniel was correct about Belshazzar, so he could also be right about Belshazzar being in the family line of Neb (II) if one of Nebs daughters was the one married to Nabo

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From where I'm sitting the author of Daniel didn't know of Nabonidus, and simply assumed that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. The book of Daniel contains no mention of Nabonidus at all - a strange omission if the early dating were correct - and the only reason for assuming that it does not mean that Nebuchadnezzar was Belshazzar's father is that WE know that that is not true.

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that cannot be correct for the reason that in the first century the entire hebrew scriptures made up the septuagint....the septuagint is the version that Apostles and Jesus used when readings were held in synagugues. Jesus quoted almost word for word from parts of Daniel.

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So what you are arguing is:1) Since the Gospels were written in Greek Jesus must have spoken in Greek.2) If Daniel was not translated in the 3rd Century BC, nobody could use a Greek translation in the 1st Century ADWant to explain how either of these even makes sense ?

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what i am pointing out is that the septuagint did include the entire hebrew scriptures.

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If you are referring to the original translation in the 3rd Century BC then you have to be making the arguments I suggested. (In fact you can't use the words attributed to Jesus AT ALL unless you assume that he must have preached in Greek just because the Gospels use Greek).

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Iblis seems to think that the Greek Septuagint only contained the first 5 books of moses. This is not correct.

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No, he argues that the original translation effort in the 3rd Century BC only covered the Torah. He does NOT argue against later additions as other books were translated. This is the scholarly view and is not contradicted by ANY of your evidence

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and there is no evidence for that assumption

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Even if that were true (and you simply are not in a position to know) it does not change the fact that your arguments utterly failed to address the point. To use the Septuagint as evidence against a late date for Daniel you need to establish that the translation of Daniel was done too early. And YOU have produced no evidence for that.It is your assumption - without evidence - that the original translation in the 3rd Century BC included Daniel.If you want to succeed in debate you need to think less like a low-grade apologist, trying to invent excuses, and accepting anything that looks good to you, no matter how foolish it might happen to be - and more like a scholar, interested in investigating and learning the facts.

The 36 CE date for the baptism is problematic for another reason. Pilate was recalled to Rome by the start of 37 CE, so the 36 CE Passover is the latest possible date for the crucifixion that could possibly fit the Gospels. Which means that if Jesus was baptised even at the very start of 36 AD, his entire ministry - and the 40 days in the wilderness - would have to be fitted into a few months.Nobody knows the exact year, but 36 CE isn't plausible without some serious errors in the Gospels. (Either Pilate is gone or the crucifixion didn't happen at Passover - or Jesus' ministry is shorter than even the synoptics suggest).

While 29 CE is possible it's far from certain.However it does seem certain that your 455 BCE start date is wrong. The actual evidence points to the decree in question being issued in 445 BC, which does not fit your calculation as we have already discussed. (And let us note that you abandoned the discussion without dealing with the evidence).

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i dont need to use the septuagint as evidence for Daniels early writership...Daniel was not written in Koine Greek for a start, it was written in Hebrew therefore the septuagint version (written in greek) has no bearing on Daniels timing

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Well, if you don't believe your own arguments are even relevant, why use them at all ?

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unfortunately, the only reason why scholars put its writing time at 167bc is because they suppose that its prophecies about the disgusting thing was referring to Antiochus IV Epiphanes who desecrated and looted the Jerusalems Temple around that time.

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You're wrong there. Not only are you ignoring most of the evidence relating Antiochus to the content of the prophecy, that's not even a mjor reason why Daniel is dated to that time.Significant reasons are:Failure in the prophecies (although accurately describing a lot of events, Daniel is wrong about the death of Antiochus).The lack of earlier references to either Daniel the man or the book. Ezekiel mentions a "Daniel", but not in terms that allow us even to identify the person he refers to as a contemporary of his (in fact it is more likely someone seen as belonging to the distant past). None of the other books of the Bible written between the two proposed dates mention Daniel at all, nor is Daniel mentioned in Sirach.Anachronisms, errors and omissions in the text relating to the supposed time of writing. (e.g. the failure to mention Nabonidus at all is a significant omission).

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they were way off the mark on that one....70CE was when the end came for the temple, not 167bc....but lets ignore the temples real destruction because there is no such thing as prophecy, right.

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As you know there is far more to the prophecy than that - and the 70 CE date does not fit at all. It doesn't even fit with YOUR interpretation of the 70 weeks. (Hint: 26 + 7 = 33).

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It wasnt really my argument

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So you copied an argument, believing it to be worthless in the hope of convincing the readers ? Why would you do that ?

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you really do twist words around

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You're really not in a position to make that accusation.For instance your assertion in Message 54
Has the problem that you have not quoted Josephus as saying any such thing.Or in Message 56
Iblis stated that the original translation effort included only the Torah (msg=27), not that no other books were included later. But your argument deals with a later situation, allowing plenty of time for further translations to be made. What is more, this is not the first time you have made this misrepresentation, which I pointed out in Message 36.

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My argument is and was and still is that "the council of Jamnia did not complete the canon. The canon was already complete as can be easily proved by the fact that the Alexandrian Jewish scholars made the Greek Septuagint translation in 280BCE. Esthter & Danile are both in the greek septuagint."

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Firstly, you already said that it wasn't really your argument (Message 52)
Secondly your argument about canonisation is meant to establish an early date for Daniel - and it is based on the Septuagint. Yet in Message 49 you said: This is the point, I am trying to make. Put your brain in gear before writing. The greek translation of Daniel DOES have a bearing on the timing of Daniel since it must come afterwards. The only problem is that you have no valid argument for the date of the translation - nothing that indicates that the 3rd Century BC translation effort included anything more than the Torah, let alone that the choice of books to translate was determined by a canon.

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you forgot about the dead sea scrolls which included the 12 prophets as part of the greek septuagint translation

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No, I did not. Even the very earliest scrolls in the collection (circa 150 BCE) are too late to be of any use to your argument. Even worse for you I can find no evidence of Greek copies of Daniel in the DSS.

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i think that is hard physical evidence that the greek septuagint was more then just the Torah....you seem to keep ignoring that fact though.

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Again, Iblis only stated that the original translation effort in the 3rd Century BC was restricted to the Torah. To have "hard physical evidence" that Daniel was translated into Greek in the 3rd Century BCE you would need to have Greek translations of Daniel from the 3rd Century BCE. However the DSS includes nothing so early, and apparently no Greek translations of Daniel.How is the mere existence of a manuscript in Hebrew and/or Aramaic evidence of a Greek translation of the same work 100 years earlier ?As I said, learn to put your brain in gear before you start writing. Then you won't make so many hideous mistakes.