It was in 537, and the new bishop/Pope was Vigilius, who became pope through the influence of Theodora. The bishop who was deposed was Sivarius, who wasn’t just neutral, but pro-Goth. Justinian was sitting in Constantanople the whole time. The person you’re thinking of who did this wasn’t Justinian, but Belisarius, who was commanding the Imperial Army. And it’s not like Vigelius got along all that well with Justinian, or even had that much independence of action, and ended up his virtual prisoner in Constantanople for 8 years. If you need to distinguish the first really independent Pope, it would have either been earlier, with Gelasius, who claimed Rome’s primacy over the other patriarchies (and who was able to do it without a Western Emperor to challenge him, not to metion the whole Monophysite thing), or later, with Boniface III, who endorsed Phocas in exchange for the title of “Universal Bishop”.
It also wasn’t either Justinian or Belisarius who killed Silvarius, but Vigilus himself (Well, he didn’t so much kill him as torture him a lot and then let him die). And while Byzantine history is fascinating, it doesn’t have much to do with the dating of the Book of Daniel.
Jesus told the Pharisees, “You search and investigate and pore over the Scriptures diligently, because you suppose and trust that you have eternal life through them. And these Scriptures testify about Me!” (John5:39) The Jewish scriptures are thus a testimony of the very first Christian (Jesus). All the Scriptures are therefore Jewish and Christian at the same time.
I grant you that not all scholars have an ulterior motive for examining Daniel or any other book of the Bible, actually that’s the way the pseudepigraphal and apocryphal books were weeded out. However, the accuracy of Daniel in predicting the rise and fall of Antiochus Epiphanes spawned many Bible detractors (not historians) to attack it in an effort to undermine the inspiration and supernatural character of the book. Since that was the starting point of the controversy, my point is that the book is not only accurate about Antiochus but also about every kingdom it mentions right down to our day. This covers a span of 2500 years with 100% accuracy and points to the book’s authenticity including the time period in which it claims to be written.
The Roman empire is indeed mentioned by Daniel, it is the 4th kingdom (of iron) mentioned in Daniel 2:40 and 7:19 and the ten horns (which also correspond to the ten toes of the image in Daniel 2:40) refer to the European nations which resulted and carry on to this day.
Your assertion that Matthew copied Mark is a baseless statement. Each gospel stands as a personal eyewitness testimony. Only Luke has the nature of a journalistic report, he wasn’t a disciple until after the Resurrection.
Your other statements of “history” about the relationship between Nebuchadnezzar, Nabonidus, and Belshazzar are without foundation.
The book of Daniel stands as a living witness to the Bible’s prophetic accuracy. Hundreds of prophecies in the Bible are already fulfilled and well documented. The book of Daniel and Revelation are ongoing and being fulfilled as we speak.
Thanks for your critical spelling eye, it should read “genuineness”. By the way stood is not spelled stod, if is not spelled f, containing is not spelled containg, then is not spelled the, Daniels four should read Daniel’s four, (there are other grammatical\spelling errors in your reply, but who’s counting?).
Rome is mentioned in Daniel 2:40 and 7:7. The revived Roman empire is Daniel 2:41-44
The papacy:
Dan7:8
the papacy is the little horn which rose up from amongst the 10 horns (the ten horns are the nations which resulted from the breakup of Rome ie Germany, France, England etc)
it destroyed 3 of the 10 (the papacy destroyed the Heruli, the Vandals and the Ostrogoths)
Dan7:24
this horn shall be different than the rest (papacy was a church-state)
Daniel says nothing about either Rome or the Papacy. The verses you quote are about the history of Antiochus and his lineage. Besides, when the author of Daniel gets his facts right about that era, they also correspond with the non-apocalyptic description in Maccabees.
No. The Jewish Scriptures are just plain Jewish. The author of Daniel never heard of Jesus Christ. It does not prove anything that GJohn claims the scriptures were about Jesus anymore than it would prove Moby Dick was about me because I said so.
Um…no…the inaccuracies in the Babylonian sections, in conjunction with certain anachronisms, a sudden accuracy about the Hellenistic period and a turn back to inaccuracy when the author genuinely tries to predict the future are elements that cause scholars to say that book cannot have been written in the 6th Century BCE. Daniel is NOT accurate in how it predicts the death of Antiochus, by the way.
[quote]
Since that was the starting point of the controversy[.qupte]
That is not the starting point of the controversy, The starting point is that some traditionalists, for purely religious reasons, are resistant to accepting the evidence of a 2nd century BCE date of authorship,
The book is wrong about the death of Antiochus and predicts nothing after the Seleucid era…nothing accurate, at least.
Your confididence in these kinds of statements is very amusing. If it’s 100% correct, how do you explain all the mistakes? How do you explain the fact it none of its predictions after 164 BCE came true?
The 4th kingdom was the Alexandrian Empire. Daniel says that the fourth king would be the most powerful and would conquer much, but that after his death his kingdom would be divided in four and that none it would go to his posterity (i.e, none of the heirs to his kingdom would be his sons or descendants). This happens to match Alexander the Great just perfectly. he left no blood heirs and his generals divided his empire into four kindoms after his death. One of those kingdoms was the Seleucid kingdom, the one that controlled Palestine. The ten horns were the ten Seleucid kings and the “little horn” was Antiochus.
It’s hardly “baseless.” 90% of the Gospel of Mark is found virtually verbatim in Matthew. Matthean dependancy on Mark is taken for granted by the vast majority of NT scholars.
Um, no. Only Matthew and John are alleged to be eyewitnesses even by tradition, but those traditions as to authorship have long been abandoned as untenable by scholars. It is no longer believed by most scholars that any of the gospels (or for that matter, any part of the New Testament) represent eyewitness accounts of Jesus. This is yet another debate unto itself and a distraction from the topic. To save time, I’m going to link to this other post of mine which explains my position (which is basically just a rundown of mainstream scholarly conclusions) on the authorship traditions of the gospels and why they are no longer believed to be authentic. If you would like to contest any part of my linked post, I’d be happy to air those differences in a new thread. But this one is supposed to be about the dating of Daniel.
“without foundation?” What are you talking about? What did I say that lacks foundation?
Witnessing does not count as evidence and this is still off topic. Let’s talk about the dating of Daniel, shall we?
I wasn’t trying to call you out for a typo. I was sincerely wasn’t sure that you had used a real word. I wasn’t snarking on the spelling, I would have said the same thing if you ad spelled it correctly.
Don’t give us “etc.” Give us actual names. For example, Germany did not even exist until the middle of the 19th century, so claiming that it was one of the “ten” makes your attempt to interpret Daniel wrong for something like 1400 years. Was France one of the “ten”? Would that be the France that was actually part of the (brief) empire of Charlemagne? Does your interpretation recognize Burgundy? Is Italy part of the “ten”? Does that include the several hundred year period when there was no nation of Italy, although the Italian peninsula was occupied by a dozen or more (later down to about five) separate nations?
I would suggest that you first go and read an actual history of events, then go back and compare them to your interpretation of Daniel. You are being seriously misled by someone who preys upon people suffering from a general ignorance of history. I find your theology odd, but I have no quarrel with your theology, but your insistence on distorting history (even to the point of making false statements*), simply to pretend that you can force it to match your theology is embarassing to watch.
Your response to Diogenese
is simply wrong. His explication is exactly correct in terms of the history of that region.
Captain Amazing nicely explained the inaccuracies in your description of Justinian et al, but you are also incorrect about later events. Napoleon had nothing to do with capturing the pope. He was in Paris preparing for his ill-fated Egyptian campaign when General Berthier marched into Rome and took Pius VI prisoner. At the time Bonaparte was just one general amongst many others in the French army, albeit he was the darling of the Republic for his brilliant campaigns in '96 and '97 in Northern Italy vs. the Sardinians and the Austrians. This, however, is merely a nitpick. The more significant error you make here is in pointing to 1798 as some sort of watershed date with regards to the political power of the Papacy, and that is simply wrong. While the French did declare a Roman Republic in '98, the Papal States were quickly restored as a sovereign entity. Then the French invaded again in 1808, but again the Papal States were restored by the Congress of Vienna following the downfall of Napoleon. The Pope continued to rule politically over large chunks of the Italian peninsula until 1860, and the final death of the Papal States took till 1870 (somewhat ironically due to the withdrawal of a French garrison defending the Papal States following the disastrous French defeat at Sedan). And of course the Papacy’s political control over Vatican City remains to this day. Perhaps more importantly, since the “papacy’s influence over these countries of Europe” has virtually nothing to do with the existence of a politically independent entity ruled by the Pope, none of that really matters. The Papacy’s political influence didn’t end of a sudden, but suffered a long, slow decline over the course of centuries, and hasn’t entirely vanished even yet, even if it is a tiny pale shadow of its former self.
This too doesn’t have anything to do with the dating of the Book of Daniel, but you’re casually throwing around a lot of erroneous assertions here as if they’re established fact, and you can’t expect to do that around here without being called on it.
My answer about the various nations that Daniel predicted would rise out of the Roman empire starts with the various tribes which formed the beginnings of those nations and ends with the final form which we see today. Is it really necessary that a complete history of each nation be given so no one will become confused along the way? To clarify the prophecy for you: Daniel 7:24 predicts the Roman Empire being broken up by the gothic tribes, ie Alamanni, Burgundians, Anglo-Saxons, Suevi, Lombards, Visigoths, Franks, Vandals, Heruli, and Ostrogoths. Daniel 7:24 also predicts the rise of the papacy from amongst them and that the papacy would destroy 3 of the 10. The final form of these countries, which we see today, are Germany, Switzerland, England, Portugal, Italy, Spain, and France respectively, the replacements for the 3 that were originally destroyed is not made clear. The final end of these countries is predicted in Daniel 2:34.
I’m sorry to tell you but the history that you are dispensing (from as yet unnamed sources) is quite wrong, and your apparent ignorance about the book of Daniel itself makes me wonder if you have ever actually read it. The “theology” that I have expressed is nothing new, is actually very basic to Bible hermeneutics, and dates back to at least the time of Martin Luther and the other reformers (and no, I’m not going to name them all). Jesus said, “If you abide in My Word, and hold fast to My teachings, you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free” (John8:31). You are strongly in the grip of false history and now held firmly by willful blindness to Truth. You are quite right, this forum will not turn out well for many, but what I have expressed about Daniel’s book is quite true and the final events are certain. Where will you be when they occur?
Of course, you igmore the fact that the Angles and the Saxons were separate peoples, only (loosely) merging after their separate invasions of Britain and that neither of them played a significant role in the destruction of Rome. You also err in naming all those groups “Gothic” when several of them had no relationship to the Goths, at all. You also have to distort history by pretending that the Roman Empire did not simply shift East long before the rise of the papacy.
Basically, your “history” is little more than a conflation of errors cobbled together for the purpose of re-writing a new set of predictions regarding Daniel (which certainly did not come into being at the time of Martin Luther, much less spring from any effort of his).
At a guess, I would say that your non-history and odd attempt to re-write Daniel springs from some odd amalgamation of poor scholarship pieced together by disparate followers of John N. Darby and the Moody Bible Institute with a dash of Hal Lindsey.
I know from previous experience that (as with Revelation) arguing about the symbolism of Daniel is a no win situation with some people so I’m going to stop trying. The nature of apocalyptic literature is that it is coded and indirect. For this reason, there will always be enough subjectivity and wiggle room in the symbols to allow such creative interpretations as what Bible Man is presenting no matter what more objective, critical analysis may show. The debate always turns into a “yes it is” “No it’s not” stalemate with little hope of resolution. I’m sure that any interested lurkers or observers will be able to decide for themselves what sounds more reasonable.
Bible Man, do you actually have a case to present for the dating of the book of Daniel, or do you only want to argue interpretation? Do you have an explanation for the historical errors regarding the Babylonian period or are you just going to tersely deny they exist without further explication?
If you only want to witness, that’s fine with me, but please start your own thread.
As a rare example of fruitloop interpretation of the “ten horns” which was proven false by real life events, I offer this thread. (After reading the OP, see page 5 for what happened when Arafat inconveniently went and died.)
I love it when people try to tag real, living people as the Antichrist. It’s always fun to watch them try to dance their way out of it when said person dies or is no longer in power. I remember when Jack Van Impe was warning everyone that Gorbechev was the Beast because he had that splotch on his head. I think he also said that Clinton would be the last president. The end has been coming any second for like 30 years with that guy, no matter how many times he has to change who the Antichrist is.
I know I’m sort of taking your statement out of context, but I can’t help reading that line and thinking that the only thing inconvenient about Arafat’s death is that it happened about forty years too late.
Dio:
I guess that one got absorbed/merged soon afterward? I can just see it:
Cassander: “I told you I wouldn’t be able to maintain a kingdom on my own. But you didn’t believe me, did you??”
The only mistake which I have made was by giving some members of this discussion the benefit of a doubt when giving a brief synopsis of some of the historical events dealt with in the book of Daniel. Of course Napoleon himself did not walk into the Vatican, arrest the pope personally, take him to France himself and turn the key in the lock at the prison. But Napoleon ordered those events and stands historically responsible for them. And did the papacy suddenly end when that happened? Of course not, it continues to this day but was never and will never be a political or military force in the world as it was before Napoleon took action. The same is true of my brief account of Justinian’s role in the birth of the papacy ie, people under his command carried out the betrayals and murder etc. that led to the birth of the papacy.
Many of the participants in this forum are so focused on the trees that they fail to see either the forest or the dangers lurking in that forest. They rather remind me of the man who refused to leave his home when Mt St. Helens was about to erupt. He had heard the warnings so often that they had no effect on him at all. You are so focused on arguing about minutia that the main message\warning can no longer be heard. Many have become experts at minutia and can no longer grasp anything of substance. It was once said, “they learned more and more about less and less, after a while they knew everything about nothing” Jesus put it this way, “blind guides, you filter out a gnat but gulp down a camel” I don’t so much feel sorry for your own willful blindness, but rather for those who listen in and think that you possess something other than truckloads of vast pseudo knowledge.
My case for the book of Daniel has always been that it dates itself: the text clearly states the time period it was written. Further that Jesus quoted from the book, lending credence to His own confidence in its validity. You are the one who has been claiming and “witnessing” from some unknown historical source or set of assumptions that it was written at some other time. You are the one with the burden of proof to disprove the accuracy of what the book says about itself. My previous attempts to relieve you of that burden by simply showing the accuracy of the book’s prophetic content were unsuccessful. So now you’re on your own - What are your sources and reasons\assumptions\facts\faith,etc for believing that it was written at a later date, written by someone else, etc etc Take your time in responding if you can, I will be away from the computer for a while (some of us have real jobs)
