Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Another view that is worth considering is that put forward by David Valeta 
('Lions and Ovens and Visions' - Sheffield Phoenix, 2008), which is that 
Daniel is a political satire. If Valeta is right, then Darius the Mede would 
not even need to be historical, and we can all stop searching. It would make 
Darius the Mede no more historical than Colonel Klink of 'Hogan's Heroes' 
fame.

Whether Valeta is correct or not, we must all admit that the search for 
Darius the Mede has to date yielded pretty much nothing of actual substance. 
Despite what has been said, we actually know quite a lot about the second 
half of the 6th century BC, so there are very few if any gaps within which we 
can squeeze Darius the Mede. All the theories discussed thus far on this list 
all depend on identifying Darius the Mede as someone else, and this is 
problematic methodologically. We just cannot prove such connections, so they 
can only ever be tentative at best. This problem is compounded by the fact 
that Darius the Mede is not mentioned in any other single document known to 
us from the ancient Near East. We may want to find Darius the Mede in 
history, but we certainly have our work cut out for us in this case.

Let the search continue...


GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au