Skeptics have attacked the book of Daniel perhaps more than any other book in the Bible. Why is this so? I believe the reason is because the Book of Daniel contains such powerful evidence that it is a supernatural, divinely inspired book, and therefore is a great threat to those who have a anti-supernatural worldview. Daniel the prophet lived during the sixth century B.C. and he wrote many prophetic statements that described historical facts so accurately that skeptics over the centuries have tried to assign a late date to the Book of Daniel on the premise that no one can foretell the future. Efforts to date Daniel’s book to the Maccabean Period (about 160-175 B.C.) are as old as Porphyry in the third century A.D. the 17th century critics picked up where Porphyry left off, and have claimed the Book of Daniel is a forgery composed about 167 B.C. and consisting of folktales.
An obvious reason for critics to claim a late date for Daniel is the meticulous accuracy in which Daniel through prophetic vision from God, lays out the historical events of the Persian period, the time of Alexander the Great , and the kings that followed, right up to Antiochus Ephiphanes in 175-164 B.C. (Daniel 11:3-35). These prophecies are very detailed, even foretelling the sequence of battles and events of the lives of certain kings. Although the kings are not called by name other than “a mighty king” whose empire is divided into four parts (Dan 11:3-4, matching up to Alexander the Great whose empire was divided into four parts) , and a “King of the South” (corresponding to Ptolemy I and his successors in Egypt) and “King of the North” (corresponding to Seleucus I and his successors in Syria) and their specific maneuvers, when the described events are compared to actual history, the correspondence is undeniably there. If it wasn’t, there would not have been such efforts made to late date the book. Simply read Daniel 11:3-35 and compare it to known history. Here’s just one small section of this prophecy as an example:
And a mighty king shall stand up, that shall rule with great dominion, and do according to his will. 4And when he shall stand up, his kingdom shall be broken, and shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven; and not to his posterity, nor according to his dominion which he ruled: for his kingdom shall be plucked up, even for others beside those.
5And the king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes; and he shall be strong above him, and have dominion; his dominion shall be a great dominion. 6And in the end of years they shall join themselves together; for the king’s daughter of the south shall come to the king of the north to make an agreement: but she shall not retain the power of the arm; neither shall he stand, nor his arm: but she shall be given up, and they that brought her, and he that begat her, and he that strengthened her in these times. 7But out of a branch of her roots shall one stand up in his estate, which shall come with an army, and shall enter into the fortress of the king of the north, and shall deal against them, and shall prevail.” (Daniel 11:3-7, KJV)
This passage covers the events and battles between Egypt as king of the South, and Syria as king of the North, starting out with Ptolemy I as king of the South, and Seleucus I eventually coming to have his own kingdom as king of the North. Both of these men were two of four generals (not relatives) of Alexander the Great (the “mighty king”) among whom his kingdom was indeed divided four ways. History shows that Seleucus I left Antigonus I in Babylon, and became allied with Ptolemy I in Egypt for a short period of time. Together, they defeated Antigonus and as a result, Seleucus I eventually came to control a large area from Asia Minor to Egypt and became even more powerful than Ptolemy I who was ruling in Egypt (see verses 5-6 above). Bernice, the daughter of Ptolemy II, a succeeding king of Egypt, married Antiochus II Theos king of Syria, and in doing so made an alliance with Syria. However, this alliance eventually crumbled, and both Bernice and Antiochus II were assassinated, and Ptolemy II also died at this time. Ptolemy Energetus, the brother of Bernice and successor to Ptolemy II, invaded and sacked Syria in revenge for his sister’s assassination.
One can see how closely history followed the passage above, even though not every king or event is mentioned, just the more significant ones. As we go through the whole passage of Daniel 11:3-35, we find a similar level of detailed correspondence between prophecy and history. And yet, if this were a forgery made after the fact, why then didn’t they include names of the kings and be even more detailed?
On top of this of this chapter, Daniel 7:1-16 and 8:1-4 prophesy of the succeeding world empires of Babylon, Medo-Persian, Greece, and Rome. This sequence stretches even beyond the 167 B.C. date assigned by the critics, since Rome came on the scene almost 100 years later as a world empire, in 63 B.C. Critics try to say that the sequence of empires laid out in these chapters are actually Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece. But then the succession of kingdoms doesn’t fit the prophecies at all. For example, Persia-Media was never two separate kingdoms in succession, and this is confirmed in Daniel 6:12 “the laws of the Medes and Persians”, and in Daniel 5:28 where Babylonian king Belshazzar is warned in the handwriting on the wall that his kingdom will be given to the Medes and the Persians”.
Rather, Medo-Persia is the second kingdom, and this fits the prophecy perfectly in Dan 7:5 , where the bear is raising itself up on one side, and in Dan 8:3, where the ram has one horn higher than the other, just as the Persian half of the kingdom was dominant, and the bear devouring three ribs (Dan. 7:5) neatly corresponds to Persian conquests of Lydia, Babylon, and Egypt. Persia cannot be the third empire in the prophetic sequence because it was never split into four parts, but it fits perfectly if Greece is the third kingdom, because not only was Alexander the Great’s conquest swift like a leopard (Dan 7:6) and the swift and powerful goat (Dan 8: 5-7), but his kingdom was divided into four parts, as the leopard had four heads (Dan. 7:6), and the goat that overthrew the ram first had one horn (representing Alexander the Great) which was broken, and then that goat grew four horns ( representing the four-fold division of the Greek Empire (Dan 8:8).
Finally, the fourth kingdom does not fit Greece, who never had 10 divisions (Dan 7: 24, probably referring to the end-time revived empire under the Antichrist), or a division of 2 as in the two legs in Daniel’s vision of the image in Dan. 2:41. But the fourth kingdom fits Rome, since they were the empire that succeeded the Greek Empire, and also because the Roman empire was eventually divided into an Eastern and Western Empire, corresponding to the two legs of the image seen by Daniel. Because Rome must be the fourth kingdom in these prophecies, it refutes the whole second century dating of Daniel for those who don’t believe in predictive prophecy.
Old Testament scholar Gleason Archer states: ” If then, the fourth empire of Chapter 2, as corroborated by the other symbolic representations of chapter 7, clearly pointed forward to the establishment of the Roman Empire, it can only follow that we are dealing here with genuine predictive prophecy…no man then living could have foreseen that this Italian republic would have exerted a sway more ruthless and widespread than any empire that had ever preceded it. This one circumstance alone, then, that Daniel predicts the Roman Empire, is sufficient to overthrow the entire Maccabean Date Hypothesis (which of course was an attempt to explain away the supernatural element of prediction and fulfillment.)” {1}
As if this isn’t enough, there is another prophecy given in Daniel, which must be taken as authentic prophecy even if you subscribe to the late date theory, and that is the Seventy Weeks Prophecy-as described in my article: God of the Exact: Daniel’s Seventy Week Prophecy
But there is much more evidence to support the traditional dating and therefore supernatural prophecy in Daniel. We will cover that in part 2 of this series.
{1} Archer, Gleason, A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, revised edition, Moody Press, Chicago, IL, 1994, pages 443-444.
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