The Third or Second Year of Nebuchadnezzar's Reign?
by Farrell Till
Despite overwhelming evidence that the book of Daniel was written in the 2nd-century BC around the time of the Maccabean conflicts, biblical inerrantists still cling to the notion that its author was a 6th-century BC Jewish official in the Babylonian/Persian governments in Babylon. Besides evidence that disputes the claim of an early authorship, there are textual inconsistencies and discrepancies in Daniel that are incompatible with the belief that this book, like the rest of the Bible, is completely inerrant in its content. One of these discrepancies is a chronological inconsistency in the first two chapters. I published a short article on this discrepancy in the March/April 2001 issue of The Skeptical Review, but it presented only the problem. In this expansion of that article, I will include discussions of the "solutions" that inerrantists have resorted to in trying to explain away the discrepancy.
The book opens with the claim that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim. The third year of Jehoiakim's reign would have been 606/605 BC, which would have been the first year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. The claim that Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem at this time is hard to reconcile with other biblical and extrabiblical records of the time, but that is not the chronological problem I have in mind at this time. Beginning at verse 3, the claim was made that Nebuchadnezzar had some of the "royal seed" of the Judean captives separated to undergo special training in the culture and language of the Chaldeans (v:4). Daniel and his three friends (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) were in this group (v:6). The period of training was to last for three years.
Daniel 1:5 The king assigned them [the young Judeans selected] a daily portion of the royal rations of food and wine. They were to be educated for three years, so that at the end of that time they could be stationed in the king's court.
This is clear enough that no one should dispute what it says. The young Judeans of the royal family and nobility, which included Daniel and his three friends, were to undergo a period of education for three years, after which time they would be assigned to or stationed in the king's court. When this period was over, the trainees were presented to Nebuchadnezzar, who found Daniel and his friends to be ten times better in their wisdom and understanding than all the magicians and enchanters that were in his realm.
Daniel 1:18 At the end of the time that the king had set for them to be brought in [three years according to verse 5], the palace master brought them into the presence of Nebuchadnezzar, 19 and the king spoke with them. And among them all, no one was found to compare with Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; therefore they were stationed in the king's court. 20 In every matter of wisdom and understanding concerning which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom.
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, whose Hebrew names were changed to Chaldean ones by the prince of the palace eunuchs, who was in charge of their training (v:7). The important things to notice in the passage just quoted, however, are that (1) the young Judeans in this training program were "brought into the presence of Nebuchadnezzar" at the end of the time that the king had set for them, i.e., three years, and (2) Nebuchadnezzar found them to be so superior in "wisdom and understanding" that he stationed them in the king's court. This would mean that after three years of training and education in the wisdom of the Chaldeans, Nebuchadnezzar assigned Daniel and his friends to positions in his court. The text further states that "Daniel continued there [in the king's court] until the first year of king Cyrus" (v:21).
If this account of Daniel and his friends stood alone as an independent story, as it may have at one time, there would be no chronological problem, but problems become immediately apparent in chapter two. This chapter opens by dating Nebuchadnezzar's famous dream about the great image in the second year of his reign. Troubled by the dream, Nebuchadnezzar called upon his enchanters and wise men to interpret it. When they could not, he ordered the execution of all the wise men in the kingdom. Verse 13 says that Daniel and his companions were sought to be slain in the execution of this decree.
Daniel 2:12 Because of this [failure to interpret his dream] the king flew into a violent rage and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. 13 The decree was issued, and the wise men were about to be executed; and they looked for Daniel and his companions, to execute them.
This raises the question of why Daniel and his companions were sought out to be killed with the other wise men in the kingdom, because this story was set in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (2:1). As noted above, Daniel and his friends were selected in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar to begin a three-year period of training, after which they appeared before the king, who found them to be ten times wiser than the magicians and enchanters in his realm. In other words, Daniel and his friends wouldn't have been known at this time to be wise men, so why were they sought out to be killed (along with the other wise men) one year before Nebuchadnezzar had questioned them and found them to be wiser than any of his wise men?
The problems continue. When Daniel heard about the king's decree, he asked for and was granted an opportunity to interpret the dream (2:16). Of course, we all know that Daniel succeeded marvelously in explaining the meaning of the dream to Nebuchadnezzar (2:31-45). After hearing the interpretation, Nebuchadnezzar "fell on his face and worshiped Daniel" and commanded that "oblations and sweet odors" be offered to him (2:46). He then "made Daniel great," gave him gifts, and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and governor over all of the wise men (2:48). At Daniel's request, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon (v:49).
Keep in mind that all of this happened in the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. That would mean that the king knew about the wisdom and learning of Daniel and his friends before the end of the three-year training program that they were put into in chapter 1, and had even promoted them to prominent government positions around a year before their training was completed. That being the case, why did Nebuchadnezzar have to question them at the end of the three years in order to evaluate their wisdom and understanding? Wouldn't he have already known about their unusual abilities? After all, he had been so impressed by them in his second year that he had promoted them to important positions in the province of Babylon. Why then did he have to question them at the end of the three-year period in chapter one?
To say the least, there is a chronological problem in these chapters. Furthermore, it must have been rather anticlimactic when Nebuchadnezzar "stationed" Daniel and his friends in his court at the end of the three-year period 1:19, because they had already enjoyed the prestige of royal promotions for at least part of a year.
Inerrantists, of course, have their "explanations" for this chronological discrepancy. Even Samuel Driver, a liberal scholar who recognized the probable second-century BC authorship of Daniel, said that "(t)here is not, perhaps, necessarily a contradiction here with the 'three years' of Daniel 1:5,18" ("The Book of Daniel," Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges, Cambridge University Press, 1922, p. 17). In his commentary on the book of Daniel (Broadman & Holman, 1994), Stephen R. Miller, a professor at Mid-America Baptist Seminary, appropriated this "solution" (pp. 62-63), but since his "explanation" is basically a parroting of Driver's, I will concentrate on replying to Driver, who went on to offer the part-of-a-year-equaled-a-whole-year explanation, which is a favorite "solution" of biblical inerrantists. Driver cited Jeremiah 34:14, which I am going to quote in its broader context to show that it doesn't provide any support for the view that part of a year was counted as a full year in Daniel 1.
Jeremiah 34:8 The word that came to Jeremiah from Yahweh, after King Zedekiah had made a covenant with all the people in Jerusalem to make a proclamation of liberty to them, 9 that all should set free their Hebrew slaves, male and female, so that no one should hold another Judean in slavery. 10 And they obeyed, all the officials and all the people who had entered into the covenant that all would set free their slaves, male or female, so that they would not be enslaved again; they obeyed and set them free. 11 But afterward they turned around and took back the male and female slaves they had set free, and brought them again into subjection as slaves. 12 The word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah from Yahweh: 13 Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel: I myself made a covenant with your ancestors when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, saying, 14 "Every seventh year each of you must set free any Hebrews who have been sold to you and have served you six years; you must set them free from your service." But your ancestors did not listen to me or incline their ears to me. 15 You yourselves recently repented and did what was right in my sight by proclaiming liberty to one another, and you made a covenant before me in the house that is called by my name; 16 but then you turned around and profaned my name when each of you took back your male and female slaves, whom you had set free according to their desire, and you brought them again into subjection to be your slaves. 17 Therefore, thus says Yahweh: You have not obeyed me by granting a release to your neighbors and friends; I am going to grant a release to you, says Yahweh--a release to the sword, to pestilence, and to famine. I will make you a horror to all the kingdoms of the earth. 18 And those who transgressed my covenant and did not keep the terms of the covenant that they made before me, I will make like the calf when they cut it in two and passed between its parts: 19 the officials of Judah, the officials of Jerusalem, the eunuchs, the priests, and all the people of the land who passed between the parts of the calf 20 shall be handed over to their enemies and to those who seek their lives. Their corpses shall become food for the birds of the air and the wild animals of the earth. 21 And as for King Zedekiah of Judah and his officials, I will hand them over to their enemies and to those who seek their lives, to the army of the king of Babylon, which has withdrawn from you. 22 I am going to command, says Yahweh, and will bring them back to this city; and they will fight against it, and take it, and burn it with fire. The towns of Judah I will make a desolation.
In this text, Jeremiah, alleging that he was quoting Yahweh, made reference to a covenant that Yahweh had made with the "forefathers" of his readers when they were brought out of Egypt. Samuel Driver made no effort to explicate either Jeremiah's statement or the Mosaic law that this text referred to. When readers see the law that Jeremiah was referring to, I think they will understand why he didn't quote it.
Exodus 21:1 These are the ordinances that you shall set before them: 2 When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave declares, "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person," 6 then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life.
A variation of this same law was given in Deuteronomy.
Deuteronomy 15:12 If a member of your community, whether a Hebrew man or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and works for you six years, in the seventh year you shall set that person free. 13 And when you send a male slave out from you a free person, you shall not send him out empty-handed. 14 Provide liberally out of your flock, your threshing floor, and your wine press, thus giving to him some of the bounty with which Yahweh your God has blessed you.
The law was clear. If a Hebrew sold himself as a slave to another Hebrew, he was to serve as a slave for only six years, so in the seventh year, after the six years of servitude had been fulfilled, the Hebrew had to be freed. Six, then, was the key number in this law and not seven. By stipulating that the slave had to be released in the seventh year, that would guarantee that the slave had fulfilled his six years of servitude. Rather than helping Driver's case, then, this law merely shows that six meant six and not five full years and part of another. There is no way that a slave could serve for six years and be released in his seventh year without having served six complete years.
So the law that Jeremiah referred to was that a Hebrew slave was to serve his master six full years, and the seventh year he was to go free. Obviously, then, this law required a slave to serve six full years and then be released by his owner. If Driver's take on the passage in Jeremiah were correct, it would mean that a slave who had begun his servitude in the middle of a year and had afterwards served five complete years would have been entitled to a release at the end of the five complete years, even though he had not yet served six full years. Rather than helping Hatcher's case, then, this law merely shows that six meant six and not five full years and part of another. As I said above, there was no way that a slave could have been released in his seventh year without having served six complete years.
For the period of training in Daniel 1 to be parallel to the spin that Driver tried to put onto the law of Hebrew servitude, the king's decree would have had to state that the young men were to be nourished and trained for two years and then in the third year be brought before Nebuchadnezzar, but it doesn't say that. It says that they were to be nourished and trained for three years and that at the end thereof, they were to be brought before Nebuchadnezzar. I respect Driver's relative objectivity as a biblical scholar, but I have to wonder if he avoided analyzing the law of servitude in its contexts because he knew that an analysis would show that the law did not mean what he was claiming.
Driver also cited 2 Kings 18:9-12 to support his part-of-a-year-equaled-a-whole-year "solution" to the time discrepancy in Daniel 1 & 2.
2 Kings 18:19 In the fourth year of King Hezekiah, which was the seventh year of King Hoshea son of Elah of Israel, King Shalmaneser of Assyria came up against Samaria, besieged it, 10 and at the end of three years, took it. In the sixth year of Hezekiah, which was the ninth year of King Hoshea of Israel, Samaria was taken.
A simple application of inerrantist methods to this text will show that it cannot support Driver's "solution" to the chronological discrepancy in Daniel 1 and 2. From the fourth year through the sixth year of Hezekiah, for example, would have been three years (four, five, and six), so to get three full years, one has only to theorize that the siege in question started at the beginning of Hezikiah's fourth year and ceased at the end of his sixth. Likewise, if the siege started at the beginning of Hoshea's seventh year and ended at the end of his ninth, it would have lasted three years (seven, eight, and nine). To understand this, all that one has to do is count the number of years that would pass between, say, January 1, 2000, and December 31, 2002. One year would pass between January 1 through December 31, 2000; a second year would pass between January 1, 2001, through December 31, 2001; and a third year would pass between January 1, 2002, through December 31, 2002. If inerrantists needed to find three full years in the 2 Kings 18 text in order to remove a discrepancy between it and another passage, anyone who has had any experience debating them will know that they would easily find those three years in the same way that I showed above or by some other how-it-could-have-been explanation.
As I will note again further along, Daniel 1:18 says that Daniel and his friends were brought before the king at the end of the days that he had appointed. Since he had appointed three years for their training, they could not have been brought before the king "at the end of the days he had appointed" unless they had completed all of the days of training within a three-year period. With that in mind, let's suppose that 2 Kings 18 had said that Shalmaneser had ordered his army to lay siege to Samaria for three years and "at the end thereof" to take it by force. Then what if the text went on to say that at the end of the days that Shalmaneser had set or appointed for the siege, his army took Samaria? Would inerrantists then argue that Samaria was taken after only two and a half years, or that part of the first year and part of the last year were counted as full years?
I am not at all claiming that the ancient Hebrew culture did not "round off" numbers to make a part a whole; I am simply saying that the chronological language in Daniel 1 and 2 is too specific to allow this as a satisfactory explanation of the problem. The writer of the 2 Kings text may have well done this, but he may just as well have made one of the many chronological mistakes that can be found in the Bible. The inconsistent chronological language in the passage makes that a distinct possibility. The author said that Shalmaneser of Assyria besieged Samaria in the fourth year of Hezekiah and the seventh year of Hoshea and "took it" in their sixth and ninth years respectively, but he also said that the Assyrians took Samaria at the end of three years. That is a very time-specific expression, but there is no way to begin a siege and complete it "at the end of three years" within the fourth and sixth years of Hezekiah and the seventh and ninth of Hoshea unless the siege started at the very beginning of those years and ended at the very end of them, so the possibility of a chronological miscalculation in this text must be recognized by all except those who are emotionally bound to a belief in biblical inerrancy.
Regardless of whether a chronological miscalculation was made in 2 Kings 18, the language in Daniel 1 is too chronologically exact to allow for Driver's part-of-a-year-equaled-a-whole-year explanation of the problem under consideration. Daniel 1:5 stipulated that Daniel and his friends were to follow a three-year regimen, at the end of which time, they were to be presented to king Nebuchadnezzar. Daniel and his friends could not have appeared before Nebuchadnezzar at the end of three years unless they had completed the full three-year program ordered by the king. To see this, all we have to do is compare it to other time stipulations used by the same author in the same chapter. The "royal rations" that the king had ordered the trainees in this program to eat for a period of three years evidently included foods prohibited by Levitical law (Lev. 11), so Daniel asked the palace master to exempt his three friends and him from the requirement to eat these foods.
Daniel 1:8 But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the royal rations of food and wine; so he asked the palace master to allow him not to defile himself. 9 Now God allowed Daniel to receive favor and compassion from the palace master. 10 The palace master said to Daniel, "I am afraid of my lord the king; he has appointed your food and your drink. If he should see you in poorer condition than the other young men of your own age, you would endanger my head with the king." 11 Then Daniel asked the guard whom the palace master had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: 12 "Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 You can then compare our appearance with the appearance of the young men who eat the royal rations, and deal with your servants according to what you observe." 14 So he agreed to this proposal and tested them for ten days. 15 At the end of ten days it was observed that they appeared better and fatter than all the young men who had been eating the royal rations.
This text is clear enough that there should be no disagreement over its meaning. Daniel requested that he and his friends be tested for 10 days with a vegetarian diet, the king's steward granted the request and tested them for 10 days, and then at the end of ten days, they were found to be healthier than the other young men. Surely, 10 days here meant 10 days and "at the end of ten days" meant after the 10 days had passed. One has to grasp straws to argue that the 10-day testing period could have been only eight full days and parts of the other two days or nine full days and part of the tenth. The text, then, indicates that "at the end of" meant after the completion of the time specified.
Let's compare this passage with the verses in this same chapter that have created the dispute.
Daniel 1:5 The king assigned them a daily portion of the royal rations of food and wine. They were to be educated for three years, so that at the end of that time they could be stationed in the king's court.... 18 At the end of the time that the king had set for them to be brought in, the palace master brought them into the presence of Nebuchadnezzar....
The king had set a period of three years for the training of these young Judeans, and at the end of the time that he had set, they were brought before him. Hence, they were brought before Nebuchadnezzar at the end of three years. If they completed all of the days that Nebuchadnezzar had ordered for their period of training, then their program could not have been completed at some time during the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign. If not, why not?
Driver also appealed to Mark 8:31 in support of his "possible" explanation of the chronological discrepancy in Daniel 1 and 2.
He [Jesus] then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.
This verse has been the focal point of much controversy about the length of time that Jesus was allegedly in his tomb before he [snicker, snicker] rose from the dead, but one doesn't have to be a linguistic genius to see that this verse is not parallel to the controversial passage in Daniel 1. Aside from the problem that it could not be accurately said that a person who was entombed Friday night and "raised" on Sunday morning had risen after three days in the tomb, Mark 8:31 does not have Jesus saying, "The son of man will be entombed for three days and at the end thereof rise again." Neither does the context go on to say "at the end of the time the son of man had set, he rose from the dead." If the expression "at the end thereof" had been in this statement attributed to Jesus, its fulfillment would have required an entombment of three full days in order for the son of man to have risen at the end of the days he had set. Again, I will ask, if not why not?
I will also acknowledge again that ancient societies sometimes rounded off numbers. That is, in fact, something that most cultures do. If someone asked me today how old I am, I would say that I am 73, even though I became 73 a little over a month ago. If someone should ask me seven or eight months from now how old I am, I would probably say 74, because I would be closer to 74 than 73. In other words, I often round off my age instead of saying that I am 73 years, one month, and nine days old. The problem for those who try to explain the chronological discrepancy in Daniel 1 and 2 by claiming that the writer was just "rounding off" the period of time spent in the training period is that the author of this book used the expression "at the end of the days that [the king] had set" to designate when that period had ended. If I agreed to work for an errantist for three days for a salary of $100 per day, I doubt that he would honor my request if I came to him after working only three hours on the third day and demanded my $300. Likewise, if a state law stipulated that teachers were eligible for tenure after teaching three years in the same school district, I doubt that any teachers would go before the school board after having taught for two years and five months and insist that they were eligible to receive tenure. All societies often speak or write in round numbers, but when language is as chronologically exact as that in Daniel 1, no room is left for rounding off.
I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I had previously published in The Skeptical Review a shorter explication of the chronological inconsistencies in Daniel 1 and 2. Robert Turkel, who considers himself the Superman/Terminator apologist of the internet, wrote a lengthy "defense" of the book of Daniel in which he used primarily his cite-or-quote-some-books-and-journals-that-agree-with-me-and-then-go-on- to-something-else way of recycling previously discredited how-it-could- have-been "solutions" to biblical discrepancies. That article contained a one-paragraph "reply" to my original article on this chronological inconsistency in Daniel. In typical fashion, he neither mentioned me by name nor linked his readers to my article that he was "answering." My revisiting of this chronological problem would not be complete without a reply to Turkel's one-paragraph "solution" to it. I will quote his "reply" in its entirety and then take it apart sentence by sentence.
Here's a newer one courtesy of one we call Skeptic X. Daniel 2:20 reads, "And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm." X notes that this is at the end of a three-year training period (1:5), first complaining that there was no way to measure how they were "ten times" better, though he admits that this may be a hyperbolic way of speaking (and he is right: see Gen. 31:7, 41; Num. 14:22 -- it means "a lot of times"), but the big complaint has to do with chronology, and that 2:1 states that Nebbie had dreams in his second year that Dan came to interpret. X wants to know how, in 2:13, Dan and friends could be among the "wise men" to be slain when they weren't certified wise guys until year 3. X can't read well: First of all, 1:18-20 doesn't say that this is when Dan and Co. were recognized as "wise men"; it says this was when they were found better than other wise men. Second, this is a matter of how an oral society grouped its stories: Ch. 1 brings a conclusion to the matter of Dan and Co.'s education; Dan. 2 starts a new oral unit, which actually is alluded to in 1:17, which hints at Dan's talents in dream interpretation. X is bothered by the chronology, and complains that the promotion in 2:49 must have been "anticlimactic", [sic] which may be true from his limited perspective, but how does that equate with an error? Moreover, note that only Daniel gave Nebbie any exceptional service prior to the end of the three years; note as well that Daniel's service is not exactly an expression of "wisdom and understanding". [sic] X is mixing categories as usual.
Anyone who reads my original article linked to above or to the expansion of the problem as I have presented it in this article will easily see that Turkel's "reply" didn't really reply to much of anything. I always follow him where he takes me, however, so I will again answer his paragraph point by point.
Here's a newer one courtesy of one we call Skeptic X.
As usual, Turkel hid my name from his readers and gave them no link to my article that he was presumably "answering." This has become his standard way of minimizing chances that his readers will see that in picking and choosing what parts of an article he wants to "reply" to, he skips far more than he tries to answer. Furthermore, the chronological problem in Daniel 1 and 2 is not a "newer one." Biblical commentators have been aware of it for at least a century. Samuel Driver, whom I referred to above, offered a "possible" explanation of it in his commentary on Daniel that was published in 1900, so this discrepancy is certainly not a "newer one."
Daniel 2:20 reads, "And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm." X notes that this is at the end of a three-year training period (1:5), first complaining that there was no way to measure how they were "ten times" better, though he admits that this may be a hyperbolic way of speaking (and he is right: see Gen. 31:7, 41; Num. 14:22 -- it means "a lot of times"),
Since I acknowledged that this could have been an example of hyperbole, there is nothing to reply to here, although Turkel would be hard pressed to prove that Jacob was not speaking literally in Genesis 31:7,41 when he said that his father-in-law Laban had changed his wages ten times.
but the big complaint has to do with chronology, and that 2:1 states that Nebbie had dreams in his second year that Dan came to interpret. X wants to know how, in 2:13, Dan and friends could be among the "wise men" to be slain when they weren't certified wise guys until year 3. X can't read well: First of all, 1:18-20 doesn't say that this is when Dan and Co. were recognized as "wise men"; it says this was when they were found better than other wise men.
So since Daniel and his friends were singled out to be executed with the wise men before Daniel had shown his stuff by interpreting the king's dream and certainly before they had been questioned by Nebuchadnezzar at the end of the three-year program, how had the men carrying out the king's command known to have included Daniel and his three friends among the wise men to be killed?
Turkel, then, is the one who has reading problems as a simple analysis of chapter 1 will show. According to Daniel 1:5, as noted above, Nebuchadnezzar decreed that the young Judeans chosen from the captives would undergo a three-year period of training and that at the end thereof [the three years] they would be presented to the king. Daniel 1:18 claims that the young men were brought before the king at the end of the days that the king had appointed. The king had appointed three years of training, so if the young men were brought before the king at the end of the days that the king had appointed, they were brought before him at the end of three years. If not, why not?
Now if Turkel will begin reading very slowly, he may understand the chronological consequences of the information just presented. Are you ready to begin reading, Turkel? If so, try to follow these claims made in the next verses: [1] Daniel, Hananiah (Shadrach), Mishael (Meschach), and Azariah (Abednego) were among the young men presented to the king (1:18). [2] During this presentation to the king, he found none of the young men "to compare with Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah" (1:19). [3] The king found these four to be "(i)n every matter of wisdom and understanding concerning which the king inquired of them... ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom" (1:20).
Turkel quibbled that Daniel 1:18-20 didn't say that these four young men were recognized as "wise men" at this time but that they were found to be ten times better than the king's "other wise men," so maybe Turkel didn't notice the word wisdom in this passage. He likes to talk about what the Old Testament text says in Hebrew, so maybe he knows that the word chokmâh used here is the same word that referred to the "wisdom" of God in such passages as Jeremiah 10:12, the wisdom of Solomon in 1 Kings 4:29-34, and the "wisdom" that Yahweh had put into Bezael and Oholiab so that they would know how to do all the work assigned to them in building the sanctuary (Ex. 36:1), so I would say that this was a word that denoted "wisdom." Hence, if Nebuchadnezzar at this time had found their "wisdom" to be ten times greater than that of all the magicians and enchanters in his "whole kingdom," why would this not have been a time when the king recognized Daniel and his friends to be "wise guys"?
Turkel, of course, didn't let his readers see the problem presented by Daniel 2:13, as I explicated it in my original article.
Daniel and his friends underwent a three-year training period in chapter one, after which they were presented to the king, who found them to be ten times better than the magicians and enchanters. Since 1:1-3 claims that the "royal seed" of Israel (among whom were Daniel and his friends) were taken captive in the third year of Jehoiakim, which would have been the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, the training period for these young Judean captives could not have been completed until some time after the third year of Nebuchadnezzar. Chapter two, however, begins by dating Nebuchadnezzar's famous dream in the second year of his reign (2:1). When none of the wise men in the kingdom could interpret the dream, the king ordered their execution, and Daniel and his friends were sought to be executed with the wise men (2:13). But why would these four have been singled out for execution? This was only the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign, but it wasn't until the completion of three years of training, which began in Nebuchadnezzar's first year, that he questioned Daniel and friends and found them to be wise men. Yet for some reason they were targeted for execution a year before they were known to be wise men.
Now I suppose that we can assume from Turkel's quibble that he thinks--or at least claims to think--that Nebuchadnezzar somehow found out before the dream episode in chapter 2 that Daniel and his friends were brilliant enough to be classified with "the wise men of Babylon" but that it wasn't until the completion of their three-year training period that he found out just how brilliant they were, i. e., "ten times better" or wiser than any of the other wise men in the kingdom, but on what besides crass speculation is Turkel basing this claim? He might say that wisdom, knowledge, and insight were criteria that had been used to select the young Judeans who would undergo the three-year period of training (1:4), and so this was how the king knew to include Daniel and his friends in the group of wise men to be executed. Wisdom, knowledge, and insight, however, were qualities that all of the young Judeans selected for this three-year program would have possessed, so why were Daniel and his three friends, rather than all of the young Judeans, singled out to be killed with the Babylonian wise men for their inability to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream? By necessary implication, then, the way this yarn was spun, the king had had some way of knowing in the second year of his reign, before the completion of the three-year program and before Daniel had come forth to interpret the dream, that Daniel and his friends possessed degrees of wisdom that warranted including them with all of the king's magicians, enchanters, and sorcerers who had been unable to interpret the dream.
How had this become known?
There is an element of silliness in this story that should be pointed out so that readers will see the kind of nonsense that Turkel and his like-minded cohorts are trying to defend. Nebuchadnezzar warned his wise men up front that if they could not tell him the dream and its interpretation, they would be in big trouble but would receive huge rewards if they told him the dream and its interpretation.
Daniel 2:5 The king answered the Chaldeans, "This is a public decree: if you do not tell me both the dream and its interpretation, you shall be torn limb from limb, and your houses shall be laid in ruins. 6 But if you do tell me the dream and its interpretation, you shall receive from me gifts and rewards and great honor. Therefore tell me the dream and its interpretation."
Now put yourself into the position of these "wise guys." Upon hearing a threat like this, don't you think that you would have said, "Oh, well, then here is the dream and its interpretation"? Turkel can't quibble that if they had tried to fake it, the king would have known that they were not interpreting the dream he had had, because the text indicates that the king had told the wise men that he had forgotten what the dream was. When the wise men asked the king to tell them the dream, The KJV, ASV, and other translations had Nebuchadnezzar twice telling them that "the thing is gone from me" (v:5,8). In other words, he couldn't remember the dream himself. Some translations indicate that "the thing" that had gone from the king was his order to kill the wise men if they couldn't tell him his dream and its interpretation. If so, this rendering of the statement would have Nebuchadnezzar saying that a command had gone from him before he had actually issued it.
KJV: The king answered and said to the Chaldeans, The thing is gone from me: if ye will not make known unto me the dream, with the interpretation thereof, ye shall be cut in pieces, and your houses shall be made a dunghill.
Even if this statement was referring to a command that Nebuchadnezzar had not yet issued, the text had already implied earlier--as the reading below from the version of the Jewish Publication Society indicates--that he couldn't remember the dream.
2:2 The king ordered the magicians, exorcists, sorcerers, and Chaldeans to be summoned in order to tell the king what he had dreamed. They came and stood before the king, and the king said to them, "I have had a dream and I am full of anxiety to know what I have dreamed."
Biblicists like Turkel apparently expect sensible people to think that under such circumstances as these, all of the so-called wise men in the kingdom of Babylon just stood by wringing their hands in frustration as they awaited execution instead of at least a few enterprising ones coming forward to make up an interpretation of a dream that the king threatening to kill them couldn't remember. I know that Turkel thinks that feelings of personal guilt didn't exist in biblical times, so maybe he also believes that personal ingenuity was nonexistent then too.
Let's see what else he had to say in his one-paragraph "solution" to this problem.
Second, this is a matter of how an oral society grouped its stories: Ch. 1 brings a conclusion to the matter of Dan and Co.'s education; Dan. 2 starts a new oral unit, which actually is alluded to in 1:17, which hints at Dan's talents in dream interpretation.
Ah, yes, the old catch-all "oral-tradition" quibble. Turkel seems to think that any discrepancy in the Bible can be satisfactorily resolved by blaming its structure, organization, and sometimes ambiguity on perceived requirements of oral transmission, but he keeps forgetting that (1) if someone was committing an "oral tradition" to writing, it would cease to be oral the moment that he finished writing it all down, so all of the gimmicks that may have been used to facilitate the memorization of "oral traditions" would become unnecessary in a document that had recorded that tradition, and that (2) if the one writing down the previously oral traditions had truly been inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity, he would not have had to use any techniques or gimmicks that had been used in oral transmission, because the omni-one would have been disclosing everything to him just as the apostle Paul claimed that Jesus Christ had revealed to him the gospel that he had preached to the Galatians (Gal. 1:12).
Daniel 1:17 did say that Daniel's wisdom included an "understanding in all visions and dreams," but we would think that the author of this book knew the events and tales that he intended to include in it, and so he mentioned this to prepare readers for what was coming. As we will see further along, however, this statement about Daniel's wisdom to understand visions and dreams is actually another inconsistency in the book, because when Daniel stood before Nebuchadnezzar to interpret his dream, he said that he had no greater wisdom in the matter of dreams than any other living person but that the secret of the dream had been revealed to him by God (Dan. 2:30). The author of Daniel, then, said that Daniel had a wisdom that included the understanding of all visions and dreams, but later the character Daniel himself said that he had no more ability in these matters than any other living person.
X is bothered by the chronology, and complains that the promotion in 2:49 must have been "anticlimactic", [sic] which may be true from his limited perspective,
Darn, I keep forgetting that my "perspective" is limited. I just don't have the insights into ancient Near Eastern linguistics, customs, and traditions that Turkel has. I have pointed out many times, as I did here in "Et Tu, Bobby?" that Turkel's insights into his own native language are so deficient that no one with any specialized background at all in languages can believe that he knows even a fraction as much about ANE languages and customs as he tries to make his readers think. He fools no one but his PayPal sycophants, who enable him to sit at home hacking on his computer instead of trekking off to a real job.
but how does that equate with an error?
Where did I say that it was an error? It is simply an incongruity that we would not expect to find in a book that was written in 6th-century BC Babylon by an important government official who was divinely guided by an omniscient, omnipotent deity.
Turkel, of course, will no doubt repeat his stock phrases about robotic dictation, and ramble on about oral tradition, as he also did here and here, which biblical writers had to rely on to do the best they could in writing their manuscripts. He thinks that these writers were "inspired" only in the sense that "a work of art" is inspired, but that view is totally incompatible with what the Bible teaches about the inspiration process that "God" allegedly used to guide the writers he selected to write the Bible. In Turkel's Daniel article linked to above, he cut his throat on the inspiration issue in his conclusion.
The whole problem of the dating of Daniel really has nothing to do with evidence. The reason the Maccabeean theory was proposed was because of a prior philosophical belief that fulfilled prophecy can not [sic] happen. We are 100% certain no one would doubt the authenticity of Daniel if the prophetic aspects of Daniel were ignored - and if this were any OTHER book, without the prophecy, critics would date it early without any hesitation!
Hmmm, so Turkel knows not only what all biblical writers meant in ambiguous or inconsistent passages, but he also knows what motivates those who reject the traditional dating of the book of Daniel. Talk about a straw man! Mainstream biblical scholars who don't have inerrancy axes to grind have dated many biblical books later than the time claimed by traditionalists, and they have done so because of internal evidences that point to later dating and not because of "prophecies" in these works. Traditionalists, for example, believe that Moses wrote the entire Pentateuch, which requires them to claim that all five books in it were written in the 15th century BC, but this view has now been widely rejected and not because of the relatively occasional "prophecies" in these books but because of internal evidences that clearly indicate a later authorship. To discuss specific examples of redated works, such as Deuteronomy and Second Isaiah, would take me too far away from my purpose in quoting the conclusion of Turkel's article, so I will leave it to him to decide whether he wants to lay his head on the chopping block on this one. Section 15 of my land promise debate with Turkel clearly showed that he wasn't at all eager to address the examples of postexilic additions to Deuteronomy that I had previously introduced. In the article just linked to, I identified eighteen times that Turkel had evaded the opportunity to show that I was wrong in saying that Deuteronomy had clearly been written after the time that Moses allegedly lived.
My purpose for introducing the part of Turkel's conclusion quoted above was to show that what he said there was clearly inconsistent with the many claims he has made about biblical writers relying on "oral traditions" and just doing the best they could to produce works that were "inspired" only in the sense that a work of art is inspired. He must explain how "Daniel" writing in this way--on his own--was able to see into the future and make the amazing prophecies that Turkel referred to above. Does Turkel just believe in psychics and think that this was how "Daniel" was able to make those prophecies with "such precision"?
At the very end of his conclusion, Turkel asked his readers to consider a question.
How was the writer of Daniel able to write down the future of some of the strongest empires the western world has known before they happened in such a precise manner? We leave this to the reader to decide.
The answer to this question is simple: The writer of Daniel didn't "write down [in a precise manner] the future of some of the strongest empires the western world has known before they happened." He had the advantage of writing his "prophecies" after the fact. In "Good History in the Book of Daniel," I analyzed Daniel's prophecies to show that as long as he was "prophesying" about events that had already happened prior to the date that responsible scholarship has assigned to this book, his "prophecies" were amazingly accurate, because the writer had the advantage of hindsight, but I showed that when he ventured to prophesy the eventual fate of Antiochus Epiphanes, who was still living at the time that "Daniel" wrote this book, he had to guess and, in guessing, got it all wrong.
The "prophecy" of the end of Antiochus was rather open-ended. It merely said that Antiochus would "pitch his palatial tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain" (between the Mediterranean Sea and Zion in Jerusalem) and "would come to an end with no one to help him." Actually, Antiochus Epiphanes died in Persia (far removed from "palatial tents between the sea and the beautiful holy mountain) of an illness that 1 Maccabees 6:1-8 attributed to mental distress over news he had received that his armies in Judah had been put to flight. Records of the date of his death vary from September 164 to December 164 B. C. Since the writer of Daniel seemed to know everything about the history of the Seleucid kingdom except the final days and death of its most despised tyrant, this is reasonable evidence that the book of Daniel was compiled sometime between the last accurate "prophecies," i. e., the temple desecrations and Jewish uprisings in 167-165, and the death of Antiochus Epiphanes in 164 BC. If Hatcher rejects this critical opinion, he must give a reasonable explanation not just for the 6th-century B. C. historical errors in the book but also for the abrupt end to Daniel's remarkable prophetic accuracies in chapter 11. Maybe Dr. Price would like to help him do that.
My final comment was addressed to my opponents at the time (Everette Hatcher and Dr. James Price, a professor at Temple Baptist University in Chattanooga), but since Turkel has taken the same position about Daniel's "prophecies" that they tried to defend, maybe he would like to answer this question. If he wants to quibble that these final prophecies of Daniel were in some way accurate, then let him explain how "Daniel," living in the sixth century BC, was able to work on his own--only in the same way that a person who produces a work of art is inspired--and yet see into the distant future with such amazing "precision."
Just how is that view of Daniel's prophecies consistent with Turkel's often-made claims that biblical writers had to rely on "oral tradition" and "do the best they could" and were inspired only in the sense of someone who produces a "work of art"? Well, it isn't at all consistent with what the book of Daniel itself claimed about how Daniel was able to see into the future. As this story was told, when Daniel asked the king for an opportunity to tell the dream and its interpretation, he received a revelation from God that night that told him the dream and its meaning.
Daniel 2:16 At this, Daniel went in to the king and asked for time, so that he might interpret the dream for him. 17 Then Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. 18 He urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that he and his friends might not be executed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 19 During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. Then Daniel praised the God of heaven 20 and said: "Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. 21 He changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. 22 He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. 23 I thank and praise you, O God of my fathers: You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what we asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king."
This is clear enough that Turkel should understand it. Daniel received the dream and its interpretation from "the God of heaven." He didn't receive them through oral tradition or by doing the best he could under trying circumstances. He received them by divine revelation. When he appeared before the king, despite the earlier claim that he possessed wisdom in "the understanding of all visions and dreams," he disclaimed any special ability to interpret dreams and very clearly said that God had disclosed the dream and its interpretation to him.
Daniel 2:24 Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, "Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him." 25 Arioch took Daniel to the king at once and said, "I have found a man among the exiles from Judah who can tell the king what his dream means." 26 The king asked Daniel (also called Belteshazzar), "Are you able to tell me what I saw in my dream and interpret it?" 27 Daniel replied, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, 28 but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed are these: 29 "As you were lying there, O king, your mind turned to things to come, and the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen. 30 As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have greater wisdom than other living men, but so that you, O king, may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.
These passages in Daniel 2 blast a double-barreled hole into Turkel's claims that biblical writers depended on oral traditions and did the best they could in difficult times of scarce scroll materials and other such nonsense. The character Daniel in this book claimed to know the future only because God had revealed it to him. Hence, if Turkel is going to continue talking about "oral traditions" or difficulties in keeping track of information during times of oppression or paper shortages as the reasons for ambiguities and "apparent" discrepancies in the Bible, then he must reconcile this view of biblical authorship with the claim quoted above from the conclusion of his article that "Daniel" was able to see into the distant future and make prophecies that have been fulfilled in "such a precise manner." Such fulfillments didn't happen, of course, but for the sake of argument, let's assume that they did. The character Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that he had been able to see into the future not because of any special abilities that he had but because "the God of heaven" had revealed to him "this mystery." Daniel, then, made the same claim that the apostle Paul made about the gospel that he had preached to the Galatians, and their claims are completely irreconcilable with Turkel's view of inspiration.
Turkel is absolutely right when he says that the Bible must be interpreted in accordance with the customs, traditions, and linguistic peculiarites of the times in which it was written, but he just can't seem to understand that the moment he says that biblical writers relied on traditions and customs of their times and just did the best they could, he cannot cling to any reasonable expectations that biblical documents were inerrant any more than one could have any reasonable expectations of inerrancy in Summerian, Hittite, Assyrian, Babylonian, or Egyptian documents that were written in the same way. How,then, is Turkel going to reconcile his claim of fulfilled prophecies in the book of Daniel with his often-repeated claim that biblical writers just did the best they could and that "inspiration" meant what we mean when we speak of an "inspired work of art"? I don't think that he will be too eager to broach the issue of what the Bible teaches about the so-called inspiration process.
I considered this digression necessary for readers to understand what Turkel is defending, so now we can return to the rest of his one-paragraph "solution" to the chronological problem in Daniel 1 and 2.
Moreover, note that only Daniel gave Nebbie any exceptional service prior to the end of the three years;
Say what! After Daniel interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream, he was made "ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief administrator over all of the wise men of Babylon (Dan. 2:48), and his three friends were "set over the affairs of the province of Babylon" (v:49). All of this happened at some time during the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's reign (Dan 2:1), so why wouldn't this have been "exceptional service prior to the end of the three years"? The appointments of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were requested by Daniel, but their positions would certainly have given Nebuchadnezzar the opportunity, prior to the end of the three years, to evaluate their service and form reasonable judgments about their wisdom. One would think, in fact, that Nebuchadnezzar would have known Daniel, Shadrack, Meshach, and Abednego so well by the end of the third year that he wouldn't have needed to question them, as he did in 1:19-20, to find out the degrees of wisdom that they possessed. Furthermore, we have to wonder how Daniel and his friends were able to fill positions of such importance in the Babylonian empire and still have the time to complete the three-year training program they were in at the time. That's another problem that Turkel, who seems to know everything about what biblical writers really meant, can no doubt explain.
note as well that Daniel's service is not exactly an expression of "wisdom and understanding". [sic]
It wasn't? I ask readers to scroll up and read the two passages that I quoted from Daniel 2, which told of Daniel's interpretation of the dream in which he revealed to the king mysteries of the future that "the God of heaven" had revealed to him. This wouldn't have been an "expression of 'wisdom and understanding'"? If not, then Daniel erred when he said in his prayer that God had given him "wisdom and power" to know the dream of the king (2:23). To say the least, the passage below, which tells of Nebuchadnezzar's reaction to Daniel's interpretation of the dream, certainly indicates that he considered it an amazing display of wisdom and understanding.
Daniel 2:46 Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him. 47 The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery." 48 Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men.
Does Turkel ever take the time to read the passages he comments on in his articles?
X is mixing categories as usual.
In what way? It would help if Turkel would explain himself concretely instead of throwing abstractions around. The only "mixing" that I see is Turkel's mixed-up claim that Daniel's service to Nebuchadnezzar wasn't "exactly an expression of 'wisdom and understanding.'" Only someone who didn't read the story with any appreciable degree of attention would have made such a statement as this, but I have often had to point out that Turkel seems not to have any depth of knowledge about biblical passages that he presumes to "explain" to his readers.
This completes my point-by-point analysis of Turkel's one-paragraph solution to the chronological inconsistency in Daniel 1 and 2, so I know of no better way to conclude my reply to it than to point out that my position on this issue isn't just the ravings of a skeptic determined to go to any extremes to find discrepancies in the Bible. Many Bible believers have recognized the inconsistency in these chapters. A footnote at the beginning of Daniel 2 in the New American Bible, for example, contains a refreshingly frank acknowledgement of this chronological inconsistency.
The chronology of Daniel 2:1 is in conflict with that of Daniel 1:5,18 and in Daniel 2:25 Daniel appears to be introduced to the king for the first time. It seems that the story of this chapter was originally entirely independent of Daniel 1 and later retouched slightly to fit its present setting.
This discrepancy, then, is not something that Turkel can lay only on the shoulders of biblical skeptics, because Bible believers have also recognized it. Biblical inerrancy, in fact, is a minority view that most Christians reject. Turkel will often cite with an air of definitiveness authors who agree with him, but I don't suppose that he would grant that the opinion of those who compiled the footnotes in the NAB is worthy of consideration.
Without even looking at the evidence of a second-century BC authorship of Daniel, the chronological inconsistencies in the first two chapters of this book pose problems that cast serious doubt on the traditional view that this book was written in the 6th century by one of the very Judeans who came to Babylon in the first wave of Nebuchadnezzar's captives and then rose to become a high official in the Babylonian government. The problem here is somewhat similar to how historians would react to the discovery in AD 2409 of a hypothetical document claiming to have been written by a person who was an important official in the US government from, say, 1960 to 2000. If this document contained claims that conflicted with known historical facts, such as where Kennedy was assassinated, who succeeded Nixon as president, when Desert Storm was fought, and such like, a knowledgeable historian would have serious doubts that the author of the document was who he claimed to be.
I readily admit that a chronological inconsistency like the one identified above could have been written into the text by a careless 6th-century BC "Daniel," but such an inconsistency would be incompatible with the claim that Daniel's wisdom was 10 times superior to all the other wise men in the kingdom, and it would certainly be incompatible with the belief that this "Daniel" was inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity as he wrote the book. I intend to follow this article with more that identify other discrepancies in Daniel. I'm sure that those who read them with open minds will agree that it is hard to reconcile such errors with the belief that this book was written by an extremely wise government official who had personally experienced the events he wrote about, and certainly these discrepancies will be incompatible with the belief that the author of Daniel was inspired by an omniscient, omnipotent deity.
Go to Part Two.
