When was the Book of Daniel written?

the evidence is that Nabonidus was ruling Babylon in a legal manner. If he held no claim to the throne, then how could he have taken rulership? The only way a non-blood relation could legally take the throne, was if he was married to a blood relation.

You seem to be assuming that Neb only had 1 daughter, why is that?

Neriglissar was the son-in-law of Nebuchadrezzar II. If he was a son-in-law it meant that he was married to one of Nebs daughters. And as a son in law, he was not a blood relation, yet he could rule the throne.

You seem to think that Nabo could not have been married to one of Nebs daughters. And yet we know that Neriglissar was married to one and becaues of that he was able to legally rule.

Neriglissar was not of Nebs bloodline. He was a 'son-in-law' this means he was married to one of nebs daughers. This also makes his son, Labashi-Marduk, a non blood relative, yes?

I dont see any problem with this. Daniel was writing an account after it happend and described the events. Bel died in one night and the kingdom was then ruled by Darius...whats incorrect about that?

That kings list you've provided is for the Persians...the Darius Daniel is mentioning is not a Persian....he is a Mede.

Again, Daniel is not wrong.

I will reply to your basic inaccuracies in a new post, this one is getting too long.

If he wrote in the first century CE that "No books have been added to the sacred writings since the days of Artaxerxes" then this is fairly good evidence that the book of Daniel was already among the sacred writings and that "since the days of Artaxerxes" no new books had been added.

And think about it....there were many books that were written that never made it into the bible canon...the Apocrypha for instance. Ask why the jews did not make those books a part of the sacred writings.

the scribes did combine them

I was showing Iblis that the Greek Septuagint translation did not only contain the Torah (Gen,Ex,Deut,Num,Lev) as he suggests.

The fragments of Greek Septuagint found among the dead sea scrolls prove that there were other books (the 12 prophets) that had also been translated.

Jazzns writes:So your just inventing some magical and non-evidenced Darius that was the king of Babylon in between Nabo and Cyrus? Moreover we have in that very reference a connection between Darius as the son of a PERSIAN king. Its a totally wrong reference, but it is a reference. So the Darius of Daniel is called a Mede, associated as the son of a Persian,

Jazzns writes:What is incorrect is that it is suggestive that Darius the Mede recieved the kingdom "that very night".

Jazzns writes:But you would rather us believe that Daniel is correct and that we should upend all the other evidence that we have in favor of a "Darius the Mede" whos only purpose it seems would be as a theological shim to make sure that Daniel was not in error.

Gubaru, his governor, installed (sub-) governors in Babylon.

Jazzns writes:Josephus was in no position to know anything about 400BC

Jazzns writes:The second grouping of books to be somewhat canonized were the prophets EXCLUDING Daniel. YOu still have yet to explain that.

2 maccabees 2:13-2:1513 The same things are reported in the records and in the memoirs of Nehemiah, and also that he founded a library and collected the books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of David, and letters of kings about votive offerings. 14In the same way Judas also collected all the books that had been lost on account of the war that had come upon us, and they are in our possession. 15So if you have need of them, send people to get them for you.

Jazzns writes:The absolute earliest copies of Daniel that we have are totally inconsistent with your claim of canonization under Persian rule.

there is no evidence for that assumption

Josephus writes:And as I am desirous to do what will be grateful to these, and to all the other Jews in the habitable earth, I have determined to procure an interpretation of your law, and to have it translated out of Hebrew into Greek, and to be deposited in my library. Thou wilt therefore do well to choose out and send to me men of a good character, who are now elders in age, and six in number out of every tribe. These, by their age, must be skillful in the laws, and of abilities to make an accurate interpretation of them; and when this shall be finished, I shall think that I have done a work glorious to myself.

Philo writes:(31) He, then, being a sovereign of this character, and having conceived a great admiration for and love of the legislation of Moses, conceived the idea of having our laws translated into the Greek language; and immediately he sent out ambassadors to the high-priest and king of Judea, for they were the same person. (32) And having explained his wishes, and having requested him to pick him out a number of men, of perfect fitness for the task, who should translate the law, the high-priest, as was natural, being greatly pleased, and thinking that the king had only felt the inclination to undertake a work of such a character from having been influenced by the providence of God, considered, and with great care selected the most respectable of the Hebrews whom he had about him, who in addition to their knowledge of their national scriptures, had also been well instructed in Grecian literature, and cheerfully sent them.

Iblis seems to think that the Greek Septuagint only contained the first 5 books of moses

If he wrote in the first century CE that "No books have been added to the sacred writings since the days of Artaxerxes"

Josephus writes:twenty-two books, (8) which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; and of them five belong to Moses, which contain his laws and the traditions of the origin of mankind till his death. This interval of time was little short of three thousand years; but as to the time from the death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes king of Persia, who reigned after Xerxes, the prophets, who were after Moses, wrote down what was done in their times in thirteen books. The remaining four books contain hymns to God, and precepts for the conduct of human life. It is true, our history hath been written since Artaxerxes very particularly, but hath not been esteemed of the like authority with the former by our forefathers, because there hath not been an exact succession of prophets since that time

Iblis writes:like I didn't give evidence. Message 27 Josephus says repeatedly that what the interpreters imported by Ptolemy translated was the Law.

Josephus link writes:15. And when the king had received these books from Demetrius, as we have said already, he adored them, and gave order that great care should be taken of themTheodectes, the tragic poet, concerning whom it was reported, that when in a certain dramatic representation he was desirous to make mention of things that were contained in the sacred booksBut be said he had been informed that there were many books of laws among the Jews worthy of inquiring afterWherefore he said that nothing hindered why they might not get those books to be translated alsoaccording to the king's inclinations, he gave order to Demetrius to give him in writing his sentiments concerning the transcribing of the Jewish booksAnd I let you know, that we want the books of the Jewish legislation, WITH SOME OTHERS; for they are written in the Hebrew characters, and being in the language of that nation, are to us unknown

twenty-two books, (8) which contain the records of all the past times; which are justly believed to be divine; AND OF THEM five belong to Moses

but there was a Darius who was a Mede who ruled Babylon...he was put in the position by a higher authority, likely Cyrus

i dont think it means that at all. You are reading it to mean that,but Daniel is simply relaying the story of how Darius came to rule babylon. He says in one night Belshazzar was killed and then Daius was installed as the next ruler.

some scholars identify Darius with a certain Gubaru (Gobryas), who became the governor of Babylon immediately after its fall...with 'Darius' being the name he took as a ruler.

the Nabonidus Chronicle testifies to what happend in Babylon after its fall. It states that governers were set up in Babylon.*Gubaru, his governor, installed (sub-) governors in Babylon.*

Daniel says that Darius the Mede was *made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans* and this is intersting because the kingdom of Chaldea was the babylonian empire region...not the region of Persia and Daniel does differentiate between the two. So Daniel isnt saying he was a King of Persia but a ruler over the areas of babylon which had just been taken by the Medes and Persians. This is in harmony with the inscriptions that show certain men (Gabura) was installed as governors over the newly occupied territory of Babylon.

im beginning to get the idea that the term 'apologist' is over used. Not only are christians apologists, but now jewish people are apologists too???
so what is an apologist anyway?

It seems to me that anyone who believes in scripture is an apologist. If thats the case then those who dont believe in scripture are simply apologists for higher critics. And apparently the words of apologists cannot be trusted, right?

Josephus was in no position to know anything about 400BCE, but a 2nd century bce writer was?

How about us...we are even further from 400BCE so we should throw out all the scholarly research about the ancient world.

I dont think you know much about Josephus if this is what you think of him. But Josephus is off topic so i'll leave it at that.

they didnt exlude Daniel, apparently they put it with the writings but this in no way has any bearing on the timing of Daniel.

Seeing you know a bit about how the priests made the copies of the books, you'll know that it was a lengthy process. It didnt happen over night, it took years for the copies to be made and spread abroad.

and to add to this as i already mentioned, the Aramaic vocabulary proves Daniel to be of the 5th century BCE or earlier.

There is also the traditional jewish view that the hebrew scriptures were finally compiled by Nehemiah who lived in the 4th century BCE.
And this does not come from Josephus only. The writer of second maccabees clearly states this:2 maccabees 2:13-2:1513 The same things are reported in the records and in the memoirs of Nehemiah, and also that he founded a library and collected the books about the kings and prophets, and the writings of David, and letters of kings about votive offerings. 14In the same way Judas also collected all the books that had been lost on account of the war that had come upon us, and they are in our possession. 15So if you have need of them, send people to get them for you.

ok so explain why it is written in 5th century Aramaic. And why it uses persian vocabulary.

Jazzns writes:I was talking about your Persian timing (i.e. Artaxerxes/400BC) not the language. I am not very good with ancient languages and it bores the crap out of me to study them. I'll just note that Daniel was not written only in Aramaic (lending a little bit to #3 from the OP) but also Hebrew and that there are a number of linguistic artifacts that some people who are not bored to tears studying lingustic features have described as being unknown to the 5th and 6th century. I don't think that is the strongest evidence for the dating of Daniel so I don't really care.

So after all this discussion, you are not the least bit interested in why a good chunk of the book is written in a 5th century BCE writing? Oh well, I guess you've done your homework and and everything you state proves that Daniel is wrong.

Jazzns writes:If you feel that I am not giving the linguistic evidence a fair shake then defend it! Present the evidence showing that the language is of 5th-6th century origin and that that evidence should be considered above and beyond everything else that has been presented. I have said more than once that I consider that evidence to be unconvincing and nobody has challanged me on that yet. Tell me why I should regard it moreso than the internal and historical criticisms telling of its origins.

LanguageScholars have speculated about the bilingual literary structure of Daniel - Chapters 2 through 7 in Aramaic, the rest in Hebrew. One of the most frequent speculations is that the entire book (excepting 9:4-20) was originally written in Aramaic, with portions translated into Hebrew, possibly to increase acceptance[61] - many Aramaisms in the Hebrew text find proposed explanation by the hypothesis of an inexact initial translation into Hebrew.According to John Collins in his 1993 commentary, Daniel, Hermeneia Commentary, the Aramaic in Daniel is of a later form than that used in the Samaria correspondence, but slightly earlier than the form used in the Dead Sea Scrolls, meaning that the Aramaic chapters 2-6 may have been written earlier in the Hellenistic period than the rest of the book, with the vision in chapter 7 being the only Aramaic portion dating to the time of Antiochus. The Hebrew portion is, for all intents and purposes, identical to that found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, meaning chapters 1 and 8-12 were in existence before the late 2nd century BC.[62][63]Contrary to the above, the Expositor's Bible Commentary (Zondervan, 1990) claims that the language of Daniel, in comparison with the Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the Hellenistic period, "prove quite conclusively to any scholar that the second-century date and Palestinian provenance of the Book of Daniel cannot be upheld any longer without violence being done to the science of linguistics." It adds that the serious mistakes of the Septuagint to render many Persian and Accadian terms, as the offices mentioned in Dan. 3:3, proves ignorance of words of the old past, already forgotten in the Hellenistic period, indicating that the Book of Daniel was written in the late 6th century BC.[64]E.C. Lucas is more cautious in his assessment of linguistic arguments as well. Evaluating Collin’s approach he considers "the wide geographical spread from which the material comes and the implicit assumption that linguistic developments would have occurred uniformly throughout this area" a weakness and concludes, "The character of the Hebrew and Aramaic could support a date in the fifth or fourth century for the extant written form of the book, but does not demand a second-century date." He agrees with Collins that there are "clear differences" between Qumran Hebrew and the Hebrew of Daniel.[65]
[edit] Loan wordsThree Greek words used within the text have long been considered evidence for a late dating of Daniel. All three are terms for musical instruments, κιθαρις (cithara), ψαλτηριον (psaltery) and συμφωνια (symphonia). The existence of the Greek word symphonia was cited by Rowlings as having its earliest known use in second century BC, but it has subsequently been shown that Pythagoras born in the sixth century BC used the term [66][67]. while its adjectival use meaning "in unison" is found in the 'Hymni Homerica, ad Mercurium 51'; both instances date from the sixth century BC, the supposed setting of Daniel.It is known that "Greek mercenaries and slaves served in the Babylonian and Assyrian periods, some of whom were undoubtedly versed in Greek music and musical instruments." It has been speculated that this would explain the existence of the three Greek musical terms in Daniel's book. On the other hand, it has been claimed that the non-existence of other Greek words is a strong witness against the theory of the writing of the book in the Hellenistic period, since "it is inconceivable that Greek terms for government and administration would not have been adopted into Aramaic by the second century BC"[68] Even John Goldingay, a proponent of the late date, admits the Greek words hardly necessitate a very late date. [69]There are also nineteen Persian loan-words in the book, most of them having to do with governmental positions. Judea was under Persian administration for two centuries until the arrival of Alexander the Great.

It adds that the serious mistakes of the Septuagint to render many Persian and Accadian terms, as the offices mentioned in Dan. 3:3, proves ignorance of words of the old past, already forgotten in the Hellenistic period, indicating that the Book of Daniel was written in the late 6th century BC.