Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Yigal:

There‘s more to it than meets the eye.

Just as there are copious records of the Egyptian kings, yet different 
researchers put vastly different dates when corrolated to the modern calendar 
(please, I‘m not taking sides in this one), so a few messages ago one of our 
members (sorry, I don‘t remember who) mentioned that there are difficulties 
with the Persian records as well.

I wouldn‘t be surprised if any of these 400+ years BCE are off by decades, if 
not centuries.

In Daniel, we have a record that didn‘t have a horse in this race, and so he 
mentions a king Darius. Cyrus appears to have done a sort of coup d‘état 
where he set himself up as absolute ruler, and part of that would be to 
obscure, or even erase if possible, the role of Darius before him. Cyrus‘ 
records are not neutral.

As for Darius not being able to change a law once made, we see that again in 
Esther with a Persian king. In Ezra when a later king tried to stop what an 
earlier king had decreed (the rebuilding of the temple, which was still 
incomplete), Ezra was able to refer to the earlier command to overturn the 
later king‘s command to stop. Therefore that aspect is consistant with 
Persian rule, applying even to kings.

Your claim that Daniel was written 300 or so years later is based only on 
theory, a theory that I reject. Neither of us can prove the other wrong, as 
the earliest records we have are copies that date from about 2000 years ago.

Karl W. Randolph.



----- Original Message -----
From: "Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>

> Where did all this come from? Cyrus II (The Great) became king of the
> Persians in 559, and conquered Babylon in 539. His proclamation was issued
> in that year or the next. He died in 530 and was succeeded by his son
> Cambyses. Cambyses stabbed himself to death under strange circumstances in
> 522, which is when Darius took over. "Darius the Mede" is an invention of
> Daniel - there was no such king.
> 
> Yigal
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
> 
> 
> > Rolf & Tony:
> >
> > There may be a way to resolve the difference: how long after the fall of
> Babylon was it before Cyrus became king? In other words, Darius the Mede was
> the king while Cyrus was on the field as his chief general. How long did he
> reign after the fall of Babylon? Could it have been 20-21 years, and did
> Cyrus "help" him retire after chafing at the bit for years? Cyrus sent out
> the proclamation for the rebuilding of the temple in his second year of
> rule, the reconstruction actually started in his third year, and we have 70
> years the city was empty.
> >
> > Karl W. Randolph.
-- 
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