Review of Introduction and Dan 1:1-2 The victory of the Babylonians and the start of exile.

Review of Daniel’s Authorship, Date, and Historical Setting

We were studying the book of Daniel and we had gotten through the introduction and I was ready to start Daniel 1 1 but I Think it might be helpful To kind of do a quick review. So Daniel wrote a book.

Okay, we're done reviewing. We we talked about the fact that well, I'll just kind of skim over what we what we looked at in 14 pages of text 15 pages, so the book of Daniel was written in the 6th century BC by the Prophet named in the book.

It was often it was written in the third person. Which indeed many of the books on the Old Testament were written in the third person? In fact, we see the Lord himself alternating between the first and the third person in some of his in the writings of Christ.

And of the Lord and of the Father. So modern liberal scholars. We talked about the fact that modern liberal scholars follow the lead of a second century Heretic named periphery who looked at the prophecies in Daniel and said these are too accurate to be prophecies he must have written this as a history after they happened and That was his thesis.

He had no science as they call it to back it up. But he was convinced that these are these prophecies were so accurate. They couldn't have been prophecies. They must have been written during the Maccabean period as a historical record of what took place that Daniel predicted.

So Daniel lived he lived in the 6th century before Christ. Around the same time of that period of time. The construction on the Acropolis in Athens began. The Mayan civilization was flourishing in Mexico.

Aesop wrote his fables. Confucius and Buddha lived around this time. Greek arc. Greek art began to truly excel. The Phoenicians made the first known sea voyage around Africa and the Greeks and this is very important for pasta lovers and Sauce tomato sauce and all that stuff the Greeks and introduced the olive tree into Italy.

So Daniel describes events of the second century before Jesus, especially the period between 175 and 164 BC was such precision that the critics believed that it had to have been written During or after that period during the time of the Maccabees in between the Old and New Testament.

Supposedly the purpose for writing Daniel at that time was to inspire God's people on to victory during the Maccabean Wars. We went through all of the difficulties with that Thesis that the book the book was actually written some of the problems were the words that were in it and again the accuracy there Wasn't much for the critics to hang their hats on but it was enough for them to write a plethora of books about how Daniel Couldn't have been written early.

It had to have been written later. So there were also Concerns and and one of the reasons I'm going to breeze over this a little bit is because Kootenai Community records everything we do now. Much to my dismay and so you can actually go and review The the earlier two lessons that I gave on Daniel and get this history in much more detail if you'd like to do that.

So three times Daniel is mentioned by his 6th century counterpart Ezekiel as an example of righteousness in Ezekiel 14 14 14 20 and 28 3 those two were contemporaries. They were different ages, but they were contemporaries and so Daniel is indeed the writer of this book.

There are critics who say he didn't even write the book. They Postulate that the Daniel spoken of here was a fourteen hundred years before this Daniel with almost no evidence whatsoever. But when you have a plan to upend God's Word, you'll do it.

Anyway, you can you'll do whatever works for you? So the date of the book late second century. The late second century is the fake date. The real date is the early 6th century. Manuscript evidence. There's evidence.

There's manuscripts desert discovered at Qumran. Especially the four Elysium found in cave 4q. Which date from the Maccabean period which make it very unlikely that the book was written during the time of the Maccabees since it would Have taken a quite a bit of time for it to have been accepted and included in the canon propagated.

It's not like today today. You can send an email. And it's in southern Ukraine in 1 .7 seconds back then if you wrote a letter and you sent it from Egypt to Turkey, which will be called modern-day Turkey.

It would have taken months to get there. So these kinds of things Did not propagate the same way they do today. The linguistic evidence. Aramaic. Daniel's Aramaic demonstrates grammatical evidence for an early date far more closely associated with the 6th and 7th centuries BC than with the 2nd century BC.

His Aramaic was an earlier Aramaic clearly Persian. The Persian loanwords in Daniel do not argue against an early date for the book since Daniel Who lived under the Persians would have placed the material in its finer final form in the final part of his life.

Persian loanwords and we'll talk about them. We'll actually look at the concerns that the critics have all the way through this book and answer them as we go through it. Four of the 19 persian words are not translated.

Well by greek renderings of about 100 bc implying that their meaning was lost or drastically changed. Meaning that it is very unlikely that daniel was written in 165 bc. The persian words which are cited in daniel are specifically old persian words dating from around 300 bc and earlier this argues against the 165 date.

The three greek loanwords in daniel do not need to argue for a late date since there may well have been greek writing prior to Plato 370 bc. Where these words could have been used and since they are that given the names of musical instruments.

Which are often circulated far beyond national boundaries. And since greek words are found in the aramaic documents of elephantine dated to the 5th century bc. I should be moving along here so you guys can keep track.

Okay.

We'll get it. We'll get caught up again. The themes of the prominence of angels the last judgment the Resurrection of the dead and the establishment of the final kingdom are not themes that are limited to later apocryphal times apocryphal literature.

But have their roots in earlier biblical literature and even in books like zechariah. And then literary evidence. The reason the development of history seems to stop with antiochus for Epiphanes is not necessarily because that was when the writer lived.

It is probably for literary theological reasons. He best foreshadows the antichrist to come. And then predictive evidence. The fourth empire in daniel 2 We'll look at that is not of the greeks as those who hold to a late date.

This is substantiated by the vision in chapter 7 where the second empire is not media. And the third empire is not persia. But is greece which divides into four. And we'll see all of that in detail as we get to the predictive sections of daniel.

Um.

At times. This is an interesting bit of trivia communist governments prohibited preaching from the book of daniel because it reveals god's knowledge of the future and it shows that in the end. The lord god and his people win and they didn't want that information propagated.

Oh my it's. Really nothing changes people human nature is the same. It's the same today as it was hundreds and thousands of years ago. Daniel contains more fulfilled prophecies than any other book in the bible.

In new testament prophecy daniel is referred to more than any other old testament book. And so then I think we had the the location here is um the syrian desert as you can see this is there's babylon and.

All of those geographic locations we looked at that and then set against the ancient babylon location where it was. Right in the middle of iraq. The one of the other interesting bits of trivia if you will was the size of babylon.

When you read about an empire what comes to mind. Gigantic huge earth encompassing. No, it's about the size of texas. If I remember right. Yeah, it controlled nearly 130. No, it wasn't even as big as texas.

I'm, sorry. They controlled about 194 000 square miles, which is about 73 of the size of texas. Or the size of the states of idaho and nevada combined that was the babylonian empire now in that day. That was huge.

It was a lot of land. It still is a lot of land actually so the babylonian empire of of millennia. Actually, it endured for millennia and it had massive ups and downs in both size and influence. It was founded about 2300 bc.

It grew in size under hammurabi between 1790 bc and 1750. And then in the neo babylon period that babylonian period that daniel was involved with which spanned the years 626 bc. To 539 it became the most powerful kingdom in the world at the time.

Then we looked at all of you. We looked at a whole bunch of events and those slides and that. That audio was available online. And that ended us december 29th. 19. Yeah 19 2019 yeah, it was a long time ago.

So when daniel entered when daniel arrived in babylon, he would have been a teenager. Probably Mid-teenager years his life spanned about 85 years and in this late in his life. He penned this book. It is the most as I said the most quoted book in the new testament and has as I said more fulfilled prophecies than any other book.

Since daniel was a government official first. And a prophet second the book is placed in the hebrew writings rather than in the prophets section. And we talked about earlier scholar early scholars um rejecting it because It was too accurate.

Um. The message the clear message of the book is that of god's sovereignty over angels principalities powers nations and human rulers. God is sovereign as we know over everything but specifically these five things.

Nothing escaped god's hand in this writing. There are miracles in chapters 1 through 6 and significant prophecies in chapters 7 through 12. So some some of the objections we'll look at that we're going to look at.

Is that the author is not daniel the daniel we find in the book. And there are detailed objections that I laid out in a list that we went through.

Um.

See if we can get to that. I should have been plugging this thing along. These are all online for you to look at.

17 there it is.

So.

Some of those objections are listed up there.

And.

Actually, there were two pages of them page one 200 bc the prophets was added and those are all online for you to look at if you would like to do that.

Um.

We we need to understand.

That the liberal.

Critics who reject the authenticity of daniel start with many presuppositions. The first and most glaring is that predictive prophecy is impossible. They must believe that you cannot predict the future In order to reject daniel.

That's one of the first things they need to to adhere to if you will. The second is the predict is the rejection of detailed prophecy. The third is rejection of miracles. Rejection of his canonicity I should have said is one detailed prophecy miracles.

Fourth is textual problems five is problems of language and six is alleged historical inaccuracies. And we'll look at each one of those as we go through the book. We'll peg each of the critics concerns.

What they were and how they are answered. So much more detail will be added to these as we study the text. So and then i'm going to finish up with this actually right there.

We.

Adhere to the historical grammatical method of interpretation of the bible. We believe that in order to understand the bible you must read it in the historical setting. Understanding the words as the people of that time would have understood the words.

Which unders you would understand my chagrin when I thought that dodge Actually existed in new testament times when I found out that john the baptist's head was brought to the king on a charger. Was it a 68 my favorite year?

No, it couldn't have been. If you go back and understand the king james a charger is a platter. And when you look at the original greek word the interpretation the interpretation is from a greek word which means a plate or a platter.

So that's what i'm talking about. You have to understand the the uh the text. As the people who was written to understood it. That's the historical grammatical method. There are four methods. The first one is the historical grammatical second is the tropological or moral method.

The third is the allegorical which is The best way to abuse a text i've ever seen and the fourth is the anagogical which is the second best way. To abuse the text that i've ever seen. And we went through each of those and that's all online.

So then we quickly talked about the principles we would use. And I will just highlight a couple of phrases from each of the five. Seven or ten principles we've got here. They must the words of the bible must be interpreted based on the intention of the author.

And not on the presuppositions or the suppositions of the reader. Number two interpretation must be based upon the context of the passage in question. There's near context. Paragraph context section context and even the context understanding the author themselves.

Number three the bible must be interpreted literally allowing for the normal use of words and figurative language for example. A normal method of explaining that the word of god is perfect is found in psalm 19.

The law of the lord is perfect restoring the soul the testimony of the lord is sure. Making wise the simple a figurative way of saying the same thing would be like comparing god's word to illumination.

Thus we see in proverbs 6 23 for example for the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is a light. And reproofs for discipline are the way of life. So those are examples of that often we see that in scripture number four.

Use the bible to interpret itself. It is its best interpreter and i'm way behind.

Sure.

Not that one the first one.

Yes Yes.

If literal sense made perfect sense, then all other sense is nonsense and often Unfortunately, we humans want the bible to say something. It doesn't so we adopt the nonsense version. And especially when it is attempting god is through his word is attempting to point out our sin.

Ah, it's not sin. That's just fill in the blank. Number four use the bible to interpret itself. So when in the old testament interpret the verse in question in context only after this is accomplished.

Only after this is accomplished should one go to the new testament for further insight. Some verses are very hard to understand and must be understood both in the local context and in the greater context.

And we we just I detailed the one of the sections that jim had just taken us through. How long has it been since we were in hebrews 6? I guess january. Yeah. Yeah, okay. Number five. Interpretation is not application.

And so in matthew chapter 9 for example an historical event occurred which in which jesus was seen eating with a tax collector. He was taken to task by the pharisees. His response to the pharisees was a historical statement.

That occurred in real time. His statement rebuked them. An application for us today would be might be that we when we hear someone or see someone doing something contrary to scripture. We lovingly and compassionately approach them seeking either their salvation.

Or restoration. It is not an opportunity for one-upmanship and lording it over others. And that dear brothers and sisters is almost always a function of our attitude and our own heart. Uh, what are we trying to do.

Are we trying to grow someone help someone or show them how much we know about scripture. And how much they need to be like us.

Yes.

Number six. Be careful not to misunderstand the distinctions between israel and the church between the old testament and new testament. And etc. And finally. And very importantly be aware of the type of literature.

You are reading in the scriptures in the bible. You will find law.

Narrative.

Oops, I was there. You will find law Narrative wisdom poetry gospel parable epistle and apocalyptic Literature and so then we discussed some of those and what they were like and how they worked and then we um, and then and just to give you an idea, there's there's some of the subtexts of all of that.

And then we finished and here we are today. With the are there any questions about anything? I just rapidly rushed through before we start actually into the text of the book of daniel. So let's take the book of daniel and let's read the first chapter together.

What a wonderful book. It's the best book in the bible I know first second corinthians used to be but we're not studying second corinthians anymore. We're studying daniel and it's the best book in the bible.

Daniel 1:1-2 and the Fall of Jerusalem

Number in daniel chapter one. Daniel chapter one. In the third year Of the reign of jehoiakim king of judah nebuchadnezzar king of babylon came to jerusalem and besieged it. And the lord gave jehoiakim king of judah into his hand Along with some of the vessels of the house of god and he brought them to the land of shinar To the house of his god and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.

Then the king ordered ashpanaz the chief of his officials to bring in some of the sons of israel Including some of the royal family and of the nobles. Youths in whom was no defect who were good-looking showing intelligence in every branch of wisdom endowed with understanding With discerning knowledge and who had ability for serving the king's court.

And he ordered them to teach them the literature and the language of the chaldeans chaldeans babylonians. And the king appointed for them a daily ration from the king's choice food and from the wine which he drank.

And appointed that they should be educated three years at the end of which they were to Enter the king's personal service. Now among them from the sons of judah were daniel hananiah mishael and azariah.

Then the commander of the officials assigned new names to them and to daniel. He assigned the name belta shazar belta shazar to be distinguished from bel shazar who was a king. Belta shazar and the name to hananiah shadrach and to mishael mishak and to azariah azariah abednego or abednego.

But daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine which he drank. So he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself.

Now god granted daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander of the officials. And the commander of the officials said to daniel he said this I am afraid of my lord the king. Who has appointed your food and your drink for why should he?

See your faces looking more haggard than the youths who are your own age. Then you would make me forfeit my head to the king. Imagine that losing your head for feeding the wrong stuff. That's pretty severe.

But daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over daniel hanari hananiah mishael and azariah. Daniel said this please test your servants for 10 days and let us be given vegetables some vegetables to eat and water to drink.

Then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king's choice food. And deal with your servants according to what you see. So he listened to them in this matter.

That is the overseer. He listened to daniel in this matter and tested them for 10 days. And at the end of 10 days their appearance seemed better and they were fatter Than all the youths who had been eating the king's choice food.

So the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and the wine they were to drink and kept giving them vegetables. And as for these four youths god gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom.

Daniel even understood all kinds of visions and dreams. Then at the end of the days which the king had specified for presenting them the commander of the officials presented them before nebuchadnezzar.

And the king talked with them and out of them all not and out of them all not one was found like daniel hananiah Mishael and nazariah. So they entered the king's personal service and as for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them He found them 10 times better than all the magicians and conquerors Conjurers who were in his realm in all his realm and daniel continued until the first year of cyrus the king.

There's a ton in that first chapter. And what i'm looking forward to when I finally get to be meet the savior because I want to ask daniel what's missing. What's missing. Because there's I mean.

Persia.

The babylonian empire overran jerusalem israel and took everybody captive and we there's More in other parts of scripture about that. About how that was accomplished. But so much information is missing that just interests me.

How did they capture how did they determine which were the best young men? Young people to to take into service. Where did they take them? How did they take them? Just a ton of questions, but at any rate that'll be for some time in the future.

And i'll ask them questions myself. So Let's look at verse one. In the third year of the reign of johiachin king of judah nebuchadnezzar king of babylon came to jerusalem and besieged it. So in the summer of 605 bc.

The two extant superpowers of the world at that time clashed Egypt and babylon met in battle at carcass. Babylon defeated egypt and the armies of egypt retreated south. They went home. By late summer nebuchadnezzar had taken control of the city of jerusalem.

In mid-august nebuchadnezzar's father king nebuchadnezzar died in babylon. So nebuchadnezzar stopped what he was doing. He hurried home to claim the crown. You had to be present to claim the crown. You didn't get voted in.

And he took with him some of the sacred vessels of the temple and some of the best of the jewish young men. Among those captors were daniel and his three friends hananiah mishael and azariah. The vessels he took were placed in the temple of marduk in the temple complex.

Of uh.

Esaglia.

Esagila esagila, excuse me, which was set up to honor marduk and the who was the main babylon babylonian god. This would have been done to celebrate the victory given to them they believed by marduk and to humiliate the god of the israelites.

So here in verse one. Where do you think the critics began their objections? In verse one. Well good for them. Here in verse one is one of the first objections that the critics have. We must remember that because the book of daniel is the most Quoted in the new testament and has the most fulfilled prophecies of any other book.

It will be attacked by on every angle at every opportunity by liberal critics. The statement is made that nebuchadnezzar was not yet king when this happened. And daniel said in the third year of the reign of jehoiakim king of judah Nebuchadnezzar king of babylon besieged Jerusalem came to bat jerusalem and besieged it.

Well, he wasn't king yet. He hadn't gone home and Taken the crown from his his past his father who had passed. He only found out about his father's death and in august and returned home to claim the kingship.

Daniel is simply using the narrative sense. In what is called a proleptic statement. That is he used the title of king In anticipation of the fact that nebuchadnezzar did indeed ascend to the throne. This is common language that has been used throughout history.

Another example would be the statement president calvin president calvin coolidge was a storekeeper as a boy. Now was he president when he was a storekeeper as a boy. Do you object to that narrative sense?

No. And neither do I but the critics do. He was most certainly not president when he was a boy, but the title attends him. And is what he is remembered by as in many cases. We will see the answers to the critics.

Objections are so simple as to be humorous often silly. But answer they must be. So that that's the beginning of the book of daniel nebuchadnezzar who became king of babylon attacked besieged jerusalem Fought egypt and won and then in that section of the world.

He um Scooped up all of the temple Gold and and utensils and things like that to take back to his god. And he took the best of the best and brightest in in israel and took them back to babylon to Improve the lot of babylon if you will any questions about verse one.

Yes.

I did carcamish. Carcamish they met the battle of carcamish. It wasn't in israel. Where's carcamish? Okay, one of my flip one of my answers one of my statements To you has always been that I will not give flippant answers if I don't know the answer.

I think carcamish probably isn't in texas, but i'm not sure where it's at. So i'll look that up and i'll get back to you. But it wasn't in israel if I said that it was a mistake. They met on on the battlefield in carcamish.

My guess is is that was an area that both of them were trying to take control of but we'll look it up. Where?

Is Carcamish.

I will report back to you, sir. Yeah. Yeah, we're not going to get very far into the book of daniel. So it'll be easy to come back and answer this. Questions of geography are always fun. Especially nowadays when you can just look it up in about three tenths of a second any other questions.

So that's still not texas, is it? Okay, it's in iran.

So.

I don't know if I can get back to my map, but I can kind of give you a for those of us who are Not haven't got that all memorized. Um, it's. He wanted to know where carcamish was and why they met on the battlefield there.

Was it and what was one of them trying to conquer the area or etc? So at any rate it was near iran and i'll have some maps and some information. Yeah, well i've actually did I lose my.

Cool thing.

Yeah, it was an egyptian held city. Okay, so that's most of the answer but i'll get back to the rest of it next week.

What do I do?

Yeah, yeah.

So he he took the time to go over to jerusalem and scoop up. Probably knowing that it was one of the more flourishing cities that probably had lots of good stuff to steal. You know if if uh. If this area was taken over by an enemy invader more than likely they wouldn't plunder clark fork.

But they would plunder spokane.

Pardon.

We're probably not safe either but any other questions. Nathal Egypt. Yeah, yeah, he brought the kids to shinar which is a colloquialism for babylonia. Any other questions.

Okay.

Verse 2. The lord gave jehoiakim king of judah into his hand Along with some of the vessels of the house of god and he brought them to the land of shinar. To the house of his god and he brought the vessels into the treasury of his god.

So contrary to nebuchadnezzar's Nebuchadnezzar's belief that his god had conquered jehovah. The fact was jehovah himself had allowed and allowed nebuchadnezzar to win that battle and to plunder judah.

There are companion verses that give basically the same information About this. Against him. In his days second kings 24 one nebuchadnezzar king of babylon came up and jehoiakim became his servant for three.

Oh, by the way Second kings calls nebuchadnezzar the king. The critics didn't take any time to object to that by the way. Okay back to what we were saying. Versus the verse of scripture says in his days nebuchadnezzar king of babylon came up and jehoiakim became his servant For three years and then turned and rebelled against him.

Second chronicles 36 5 through 7. Jehoiakim was 25 years old when he became king and he reigned 11 years in jerusalem. And he did evil in the sight of the lord his god. Nebuchadnezzar king of babylon came up against him and bound him with bronze chains to take him to babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar also brought some of the articles of the house of the lord to babylon to put them in his temple at babylon.

And then.

Thus began the 70 years captivity spoken of both by daniel in chapters 9 in chapter 9 1 and 2 and in jeremiah chapter 25 11. In the first year of darius the son of hagiwaris. The median of median descent who was made king over the kingdom of the chaldeans in the first year of his reign.

I daniel observed in the books the number of the years which was revealed as the word of the lord to jeremiah the prophet for the completion. Of the desolations of jerusalem namely 70 years. So daniel explains that that time period was the 70-year period.

And then jeremiah 25 11. This whole land will be a desolation and a horror and these nations will serve the king of babylon. 70 years. See, it's those kind of predictions that the critics can't endure.

Why not 69? Why not 58? Why not 72? Why not just an indeterminate number like we would do because we don't know anything about the future. They predicted it specifically. Or wrote about it specifically.

Israel had prostituted herself to the gods of the different nations and as such. Had not kept any or at least had kept very few of the commands of god. One of those commands of god was to let the land rest every how many years.

Wow, what a coincidence. Every 70 years nor have they kept the sabbath day and the sabbatical year jeremiah 34 Verses 12 through 22. I'm going to read the whole thing. Then the word of the lord came to jeremiah from the lord saying thus says the lord god of israel.

I made a covenant with your forefathers in the day that I brought them out of the land of egypt from the house of bonning.

Saying.

At the end of seven years. Each of you shall set free his hebrew brother who has been sold to you and who has served you six years. You shall send him out free from you. But your forefathers did not obey me nor incline their ear to me.

Although recently you had turned and done what is right in my sight. Each man proclaiming release to his neighbor and you had made a covenant before me in the house, which was called by my name. Yet you turned and profaned my name and each man took back.

His male servant and each man his female servant whom you had set free according to their desire. And you brought them into subjection to be your male servant and female servants. Therefore thus says the lord you have not obeyed me in proclaiming release each man to his brother and each man to his neighbor.

Let me stop there for a minute. We set them free lord. We followed the specific Terms of scripture we set them free. We did take them back into captivity, but we'd followed. How many times does that happen?

Continuing behold the lord says I am proclaiming a release to you declares the lord to be to the sword. To the pestilence and to the famine and I will make you a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

I will give the men who have transgressed my covenant. Who have not fulfilled the words of the covenant which they made before me. When they cut the calf in two and pass between its parts, which is what covenant means in in hebrew the officials of judah and the officials of jerusalem the court officers and the priests and all the people of the land who pass between.

The parts of the calf I will give them into the hand of their enemies. And into the hand of those who seek their life and their dead bodies will be food for the birds of the sky and the beasts of the earth.

Zedekiah king of judah and his officials. I will give into the hand of their enemies and into the hand of those Who seek their life and in the hand of the army of the king of babylon, which has gone away from you.

Behold I'm going to command declares the lord. And I will bring them back to the city and they will fight against it and take it and burn it with fire. And I will make the cities of judah a desolation without inhabitation.

Without inhabitant.

Thus god through the captivity gave the land the rest and forced the observation of the liberty. And forced them to observe the liberty portions of his commands. It is significant that the people of israel had given themselves over to idolatry and perversion.

This was a very perverse time in the history of israel, and there's some of it.

And.

I think these slides do go online. Do they not they do? Okay. So we won't read through each one of them but uh. It shows the progression of perversion of the kings of israel the continued ignorance of god's commands to them.

And.

Gives a clear and a clear explanation to anybody who would be asking why did god allow this captivity to happen? They were they were just Radically and regularly disobeying everything they could think of to disobey.