Dear Peter,
If you or anyone else thinks that my comments were "inflammatory", I
apologize. I certainly had no intention of offending you or anyone else.
I did not intend to claim that early followers of Jesus were the first to
consider Daniel to be a prophet. In fact, we have no way of knowing whether
a lot of early Christian doctrine was "adopted" from other Jewish groups,
from pagans who were co-opted into the early church, or original to them.
That's not the issue. Other Jews could have considered Daniel a prophet, but
those who did not eventually became the "normative" position. On the other
hand, to early followers of Jesus, Daniel's predictions were important, and
so when the Christian canon was formalized, Daniel was included in the
"prophetic" books.
As far as Malachi, if you prefer "this may not have been by chance", so be
it. I think that you are giving the church fathers less credit than is their
due.
Yigal Levin
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