When the book of Daniel was written is not nearly so important as whether it contains errors. If I should be able to prove that Daniel was not written in the 6th century B. C.--and I certainly think I have given sufficient reason to suspect that it wasn't--all I would really have established is that it contains at least one error in attributing its authorship to a 6th-century B. C. Hebrew official in the Babylonian government. In this my final reply to Everette Hatcher (until he is heard from again), I am going to reemphasize obvious historical errors in the text of Daniel. In so doing, I will show that (1) the book is not inerrant and (2) the errors are such that we cannot reasonably believe that a 6th-century B. C. Babylonian official would have made them.
The father-son problem: In "Bad History in the Book of Daniel" (July/August 1998), I used over one page (pp. 6-7) to show that the writer thought that Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar were father and son. Hatcher's "rebuttal" of this argument consisted of a truncated quotation from my article, in which he omitted with an ellipsis (...) the biblical passage that so presented the relationship between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, followed by a dismissal of the problem with a remark about the absence of a word for grandfather in both Hebrew and Aramaic, but I didn't need Hatcher to tell me that Hebrew and Aramaic didn't have a word for grandfather. This is common knowledge to anyone who has engaged in serious biblical research. It is also common knowledge that when the Hebrew words for "father" and "son" were being used to denote other than their primary meanings, the context made their secondary meanings obvious. The context of Daniel 5 gives no indication at all that the words for "father" and "son" were being used to denote anything but their primary meanings. I suspect that Hatcher knows this and that this is why when he quoted my article, he chose to omit with an ellipsis the passage from Daniel that I had quoted to show the writer's mistaken impression that Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar were father and son. So that everyone can see the force of my argument, I am going to quote this passage again. It is long, but as I said before, necessary to show that the evidence is clearly against Hatcher in this matter.
King Belshazzar made a great festival for a thousand of his lords, and he was drinking wine in the presence of the thousand. Under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar commanded that they bring in the vessels of gold and silver that his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. So they brought in the vessels of gold and silver that had been taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. They drank the wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stone.
Immediately the fingers of a human hand appeared and began writing on the plaster of the wall of the royal palace, next to the lampstand. The king was watching the hand as it wrote. Then the king's face turned pale, and his thoughts terrified him. His limbs gave way, and his knees knocked together. The king cried aloud to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans, and the diviners; and the king said to the wise men of Babylon, "Whoever can read this writing and tell me its interpretation shall be clothed in purple, have a chain of gold around his neck, and rank third in the kingdom." Then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or tell the king the interpretation. Then King Belshazzar became greatly terrified and his face turned pale, and his lords were perplexed.
The queen, when she heard the discussion of the king and his lords, came into the banqueting hall. The queen said, "O king, live forever! Do not let your thoughts terrify you or your face grow pale. There is a man in your kingdom who is endowed with a spirit of the holy gods. In the days of your father he was found to have enlightenment, understanding, and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods. Your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, made him chief of the magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and diviners, because an excellent spirit, knowledge, and understanding to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve problems were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar. Now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation."
Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king said to Daniel, "So you are Daniel, one of the exiles of Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah? I have heard of you that a spirit of the gods is in you, and that enlightenment, understanding, and excellent wisdom are found in you. Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and tell me its interpretation, but they were not able to give the interpretation of the matter. But I have heard that you can give interpretations and solve problems. Now if you are able to read the writing and tell me its interpretation, you shall be clothed in purple, have a chain of gold around your neck, and rank third in the kingdom."
Then Daniel answered in the presence of the king, "Let your gifts be for yourself, or give your rewards to someone else! Nevertheless I will read the writing to the king and let him know the interpretation. O king, the Most High God gave your father Nebuchadnezzar kingship, greatness, glory, and majesty. And because of the greatness that he gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages trembled and feared before him. He killed those he wanted to kill, kept alive those he wanted to keep alive, honored those he wanted to honor, and degraded those he wanted to degrade. But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he acted proudly, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and his glory was stripped from him. He was driven from human society, and his mind was made like that of an animal. His dwelling was with the wild asses, he was fed grass like oxen, and his body was bathed with the dew of heaven, until he learned that the Most High God has sovereignty over the kingdom of mortals, and sets over it whomever he will. And you, Belshazzar his son, have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this! You have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven! The vessels of his temple have been brought in before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines have been drinking wine from them. You have praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or know; but the God in whose power is your very breath, and to whom belong all your ways, you have not honored (Dan. 5:1-23, NRSV).
Let's hope that Hatcher, if he replies again, will try to address this problem instead of just waving it aside. He has before him an extended passage from the book of Daniel in which a principal subject of the text was repeatedly referred to as the "father" of Belshazzar, who was also referred to as the "son" of Nebuchadnezzar. Babylonian records, however, show that Nebuchadnezzar was not Belshazzar's father, and no record of any kind has been recovered that even indicates they were related. This is why the absence of a word for "grandfather" in both Hebrew and Aramaic is irrelevant to this matter, because if Nebuchadnezzar wasn't even an ancestor of Belshazzar, he certainly couldn't have been a distant "grandfather" to whom the Hebrew word for "father" could have been appropriately used to express a genealogical relationship between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar.
I made another point in the same article that Hatcher didn't even wave at when he was passing it by. I quoted from the apocryphal book of Baruch a passage that clearly shows that the writer of this book also thought that Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar were father and son. This mistake occurred in a context in which captives in Babylon were sending a contribution to priests who were still in Jerusalem.
They [the Babylonian captives] sent this message:The money we are sending you is to be used to buy whole-offerings, sin-offerings, and frankincense, and to provide grain-offerings; you are to offer them on the altar of the Lord our God, with prayers for king Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and for his son Belshazzar, that their life may last as long as the heavens are above the earth. So the Lord will strengthen us and bring light to our eyes, and we shall live under the protection of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon and of Belshazzar his son; we shall give them service for many a day and find favour with them (Baruch 1:10-12, REB version).
As I noted in my previous article (TSR, July/August 1998, p. 7), the author of this apocryphal book claimed that he was writing "on the seventh day of the month, in the fifth year after the capture and burning of Jerusalem by the Chaldaeans" (1:12). This would have been in 582 B. C. while Nebuchadnezzar was still reigning but 26 years before Belshazzar's actual father (Nabonidus) had usurped the throne via a military coup, so it is unlikely that Belshazzar would have been known well enough at that time to have been regarded in any sense as the "son" of Nebuchadnezzar. The only sensible conclusion to reach is that for some reason there was a mistaken impression in the 2nd century B. C., when the apocryphal book of Baruch was written, that Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar were father and son. This is compelling evidence that the book of Daniel was also written in a time when this misimpression prevailed, but even if it does nothing directly to date the book of Daniel, it certainly supports my claim that the writer of Daniel made a significant error in chapter 5 by constantly referring to Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar as father and son. Is it reasonable to think that an important government official in 6th-century Babylon could have made such an error? This is a problem that warrants far more attention than Hatcher has given it.
In reply to the reference to Belshazzar as the "son" of Nebuchadnezzar, Hatcher said that Daniel was just following an "ancient custom of the time which was to recognize the king of Babylon as the `son' (or successor) of Nebuchadnezzar." His support for this quibble was to cite a couple of archaeological records in which "son" seems to have been used in the sense of a royal successor. One of these was an inscription on the Assyrian Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, where Jehu was referred to as the "son of Omri, even though they were not related" (March/April 1999, p. 5). We see, then, that Hatcher argues by assuming the inerrancy of not just the Bible but also other ancient records. We have no way of knowing whether the writer of this inscription was aware that Jehu was not a descendant of Omri, so as far as we actually know, this reference could hardly constitute evidence that it was an "ancient custom" to refer to successors of kings as "sons" even though they weren't really related. This could have been just a mistaken impression that the writer of the inscription had. If Omri had been a well known predecessor king of Jehu in a time when thrones were passed down from father to son, a writer in another country, who was unaware of how Jehu had gained the throne, could have easily thought that he was a descendant of Omri.
For the sake of argument, however, let's just assume that "father" and "son" were used in ancient times exactly as Hatcher is arguing. He surely will admit that such uses were very secondary and that the primary meanings of the words were the same as we use them today, so when secondary senses were intended, these were recognizable by the context in which they were used. When, for example, King Abimelech rebuked Abraham for trying to pass his wife Sarah off as his sister, Abraham said, "Indeed she is truly my sister. She is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother" (Gen. 20:12). This context in which "father" was used easily enables the reader to recognize that it was intended to mean father in the primary sense of the word. Likewise, the context shows that Moses was using the word "fathers" in a secondary sense when he said to the Israelites, "So it shall be when Yahweh your God brings you into the land of which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give you large and beautiful cities." No one reading this would think that the word fathers was being used in its primary sense.
On the other hand, those who read the 5th chapter of Daniel would certainly think that the words father and son were being used in their primary senses to express the relationship between Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. If I am overstating my case here, I would like for Hatcher to demonstrate it by citing a biblical passage comparable to this one in which the writer went on verse after verse referring to someone as the "father" of so-and-so in a context that clearly shows that father was being used to denote only ancestor or successor. Until he can do that, he has no case.
Darius the son of Ahasuerus? Hatcher continues to skate on thin ice by sticking to his premise that Darius and Cyrus were just different names for the same person. This premise is based on a very flimsy possibility that the waw conjunction in Daniel 6:28 meant even instead of and, so the verse could have been saying that "Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, even in the reign of Cyrus the Persian." What I wonder is why so many translators have failed to realize this, because an extensive check of translations will show that they consistently rendered the verse as quoted above.
Another problem with this quibble has been ignored by Hatcher: if Darius and Cyrus were the same person, then Cyrus was the son of someone who was born after him. Daniel 9:1 says that Darius was "the son of Ahasuerus," but Ahasuerus was a Persian king whose reign didn't begin until 485 B. C., 54 years after Daniel claimed that Babylon fell to Darius the Mede! Cyrus's son Cambyses II probably served as a co-regent, but he was succeeded by Darius the Great who wasn't a descendant of Cyrus. Darius the Great was then succeeded by his son Ahasuerus. In other words, Ahasuerus was the third Persian king after Cyrus. How then could Cyrus have been the "son of Ahasuerus"? Even son in the sense of descendant or successor would make no sense in this context.
Hatcher, of course, is a biblical inerrantist, and so he has an answer to this problem. "Ahasuerus probably is a title and not a personal name," he quibbled (March/April 1999, p. 3). What is his evidence to support this claim? He said that "the critic John Goldingay" said so. What was Goldingay's proof of this? Well, if he had any proof, Hatcher didn't cite it.
Hatcher's reasoning: It's time, then, to take a look at the
reasoning that Hatcher has used throughout this debate. He has argued
that the writer of Daniel really knew that the Babylonian empire fell
to the Persians and not the Medes, but instead of just coming out and
saying so, the writer chose instead to hint at it by punning on the
word peres, which had the same consonantal spelling as the word
for Persian.
To explain why the writer of Daniel referred to Nebuchadnezzar and
Belshazzar as father and son, he has argued that "father" didn't really
mean father and that "son" didn't really mean son. To explain how that
Cyrus could have been the son of Ahasuerus, a king who was third in
line behind him, Hatcher has argued that Ahasuerus, the name used
several times in the Bible and ancient records in reference to the same
Persian king, wasn't really a name but just a title. To "prove" that
Darius the Mede and Cyrus were actually the same person, he has even
argued that and didn't mean and. Excuse the sarcasm, but
that is somewhat like asking what does is
mean. In a word, Hatcher has quibbled throughout this discussion.
Meanwhile, I have shown that what Daniel didn't know is sufficient to
cast deep suspicion on the claim that this book was written in the 6th
century B. C. by a Babylonian official. Certainly, I have shown that
the book is not inerrant.
