Daniel Is ‘Prophecy-After-The-Fact’ ?
The Book of Daniel is often paired with the Book of Revelation as
providing the road map of future end-time events. Many alleged
prophecies in Daniel were fulfilled, but most scholars of the Book of
Daniel conclude that so-called “prophecies” were only produced “after
the fact” or ex eventu. This is a position reached by first examining the historical, theological and literary nature of the Book of Daniel.
Some scholars say Daniel might actually be a Jew from the Hellenistic
period, not a person from the Babylonian court and the book itself
betrays more than one author. Chapters 1–6 were written in Aramaic,
while chapters 7–12 are in Hebrew. Daniel makes many historical errors
when talking about the Babylonian period, the time in which he
supposedly lived. For example, he claims that Belshazzar was the son of
Nebuchadnezzar, but the Nabonidus Cylinder found in Ur names Nabonidus
as Belshazzar’s actual father. Also, Belshazzar was a crown prince but
never a king, contrary to Daniel’s claim.
In Daniel 5:30, Daniel writes that a certain Darius the Mede
conquered Babylon. It was actually Cyrus the Great, a Persian and not a
Mede, who overthrew Babylon.
On the other hand, Daniel writes about events of the Hellenistic era with extreme accuracy.
John Did Not Write Revelation?
The traditional view that Jesus’ disciple John wrote the Book of
Revelation was questioned as early as the third century. Christian
writer Dionysius of Alexandria, using the critical methods still
employed by modern scholars, spotted the difference between the elegant
Greek of John’s Gospel and the crudely ungrammatical prose of
Revelation. The works could not have been written by the same person.
Ehrman, who charges in his book Forged
that half the New Testament is forged, says that Jesus’ original
disciples, John and Peter, could not have written the books attributed
to them in the New Testament because they were illiterate.
“According to Acts 4:13, both Peter and his companion John, also a
fisherman, were agrammatoi, a Greek word that literally means
‘unlettered,’ that is, ‘illiterate,’ ’’ he writes.
It’s likely that Revelation might have been originally written even
before Christianity existed. References to Jesus Christ would then have
been inserted only later to Christianize the document. Surprisingly, the
verses containing references to Jesus can be removed without disturbing
the structure and flow of the surrounding verses, keeping the meaning
and sense of the text intact. This suggests that the original Book of
Revelation had nothing at all to do with Jesus.
Bible Stories Borrowed From Ancient Mythology?
There are almost 3,000 years of high culture and folklore predating
the book of Genesis. Two-thirds of recorded history had already taken
place before the Old Testament writers had ever stepped on the scene.
Judaic similarities with Egyptian other ancient religious mythology
can be found as early as the book of Genesis, Where the Ten
Commandments resemble the Laws of Ma’at written in the Egyptian Book of the Dead:
Commandments: Egyptian Book of the Dead (circa 1800 B.C.) vs. Ten Commandments (1491 B.C.):
Book of the Dead: “I have done away sin for thee and not
acted fraudulently or deceitfully. I have not belittled God. I have not
inflicted pain or caused another to weep. I have not murdered or given
such an order. I have not used false balances or scales. I have not
purloined (held back) the offerings to the gods. I have not stolen. I
have not uttered lies or curses.”
Exodus 20:7-16: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy
God in vain. … Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery …
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor…”
There is also ample evidence of similarities between Jesus and the
Egyptian gods Horus and Osiris, and the Flood narrative in the Bible and
the Mesopotamia story of Gilgamesh which can be read here.
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