Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 12.01 24/02/00 -0500, Peter Kirk wrote:
>Dear Ian,
>
>Two points here:
>
>1) You write that "The historical links between Dan 11 and the events 
>related to the Seleucid domination are so strong..." Now I admit that 
>I have not looked into this in detail. 

But I have!

There are good sources to deal with the information. Polybius for example,
a good serious historian with a very clear idea of what a historian should
be doing -- even though he was in the train of the Scipii. The information
is available.

>But I wonder how much we know 
>of these "events" which is independent of the book of Daniel. Please 
>list your sources (and their dates, and the dates of the earliest 
>surviving MSS) 

Livy, Appian, Diodorus. Text traditions are not wonderful, but there are
some nice epigraphic confirmations. See for example "The Hellenistic world
from Alexander to the Roman Conquest" (M.M. Austin, Cambridge 1981). Of
course there is also some nice numismatic evidence as well.

>for your rather confident knowledge of these events, 
>which so contrasts with your scepticism concerning reported events of 
>earlier centuries.

Check out the sources, or at least have a look at a book that seriously
deals with the history of the Seleucid empire. (An oldie, but goldie is
"The House of Seleucus," by Edwyn Bevan. There are more recent works with
much more up to date information.)

>2) You write: "If one wants to put aside the historical significance 
>of a text, they are not interested in history." Well, does that apply 
>to all texts? What about the prophecies of Nostradamus? 

Yes, of course. Try it, you won't be too surprised to find that the sorts
of assumptions that people make about the Nostradamus text are usually and
simply tendentious, ie they want the text to indicate something that cannot
be sustained through historical pursuit: this usually leads to a butterfly
effect regarding the continuity of the text.

>Does anyone 
>interested in history have to look at their historical significance 
>and try to fit the alleged fulfilment of some of these prophecies with 
>historical events? Now, although I would not want to link Daniel too 
>closely with Nostradamus, 

I can understand that. 

>could we not have a similar case of books 
>presented as prophecy but with some (debatable and perhaps accidental) 
>correspondence with actual events? 

Let me ask you to contemplate the information which I posted regarding just
chapter 11 of Daniel. This is not only correspondence but full
chronological order down to the time when the prediction starts (and the
text goes wrong, v40ff).

I'll happily wait for anyone who is prepared to give an as exhausting
analysis of Dan11 in some other context. I'd be happy if anyone could dig
up said context that would even compare with the one that has been provided.

>Just as one would not try to 
>interpret Nostradamus as prophecy after the event (and partly because 
>we know when Nostradamus' works were written, or think we do), perhaps 
>one should be careful before treating Daniel in the same way. Or 
>perhaps you would argue that Nostradamus' prophecies must have been 
>written after their alleged fulfilments and that it was all some 
>strange conspiracy, complete with texts in forged archaic language, to 
>attribute them to some earlier historical writer?

The analogy is already inappropriate, given the linguistic states of the
different texts. We also have very different contexts, purposes, and forms
to deal with. Daniel is a religious text, aimed at a specific readership.
Nostradamus? Daniel was written in before the Christian era, given a
"historical context" in the text, a context which is analysable, ie Daniel
provides us with information that simply isn't in Nostradamus's text. We
have different information about that text.

The Aramaic in Daniel is later than the text's writing. A section has been
translated by someone who didn't know the development of the text. Why for
example is chapter seven in Aramaic when it is thematically closely related
to the later chapters??

The imagery in ch7 is Palestinian, with the Baal figure, "the one like a
son of man", who confronts Yam, the sea, and earns his right to his throne
in heaven. (Nostradamus in comparison tends to provide gobbledy-gook.) Out
of the sea come the four monsters that fight Baal (the fight is not
mentioned, but their defeat is clear) and they have been converted by the
writer, absorbing the four kingdoms emblem, and dealing with Babylon, the
Medes, then the Persians (the panther) and finally the Seleucid elephant
with its horms, ten of them, ten kings from Alexander down to Seleucus III,
who was one of the three horns which Antiochus IV surplanted to gain the
throne. 

Incidentally, as a literary work, chapter seven for me is the best in the
book and very close to the best literary material in the OT/HB. Chapter
eleven has a lot less to it in depth. It's mapping onto history however is
so complete.

Nostradamus in no way compares well with either.


Ian