The Book of Daniel (Anchor Bible)

A few months ago I came across caustic comment concerning the Anchor Bible Commentary on the Book of Daniel by Louis F. Hartman and Alexander A. Di Lella. Since this is one of my favourite commentaries I thought I would respond.

I am shocked at modern scholarly commentary. First the dating was amazing, dating this book to be from around the time of 180 B.C., some three hundred to four hundred years later than previous believed. Then I quickly realized why, for the prophecies to be true in Daniel 11, one must have faith and realize how awesome and perfect and holy the Bible is for history to be predicted so precisely, or one can simply say the prophecies were written after, making void the gorgeous genius of the Author and Savior Jesus Christ.

I suspect that because Jesus Christ is referred to as “The Word” that this person holds that Jesus is, in some spiritual sense, the author of the entire Scriptures as well as the other human authors. This is certainly an issue of contention but not one which I shall comment upon.

The book of Daniel is historically accurate in very many places, indeed. However, unfortunately for many who have a particularly hermeneutical and preconceived notion of what the Bible is supposed to be like, there are some significant sections of the book of Daniel which are not “historically” accurate. Theologically, they are completely accurate and there is little question about that.

However, in (post)modern times, on this side of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and the Conservative Resurgence, it becomes difficult to discuss the nature of the Scriptures with evangelicals to any varied degree of intellectual honesty. The fundamentalist appropriation of the proclamational and educational leadership in evangelical circles has severely limited the debate on Scriptural “inerrancy”.

-For hundreds of years among Protestant and Baptist theology and confession, the Scriptures were said to be concerned with “salvation” and “Christ” only.

-“Inerrancy” was not a theological term until developed by Princeton professors in the second half of the 19th century. Only in 1905 does the term begin to surface in any standard confessions. For 75 years, there were at least 6 competing definitions of what “inerrancy” meant. It wasn’t until 1978 that a formal definition was agreed upon by the 300 signers of the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy and then made mandatory for all believers and evangelical educators everywhere. Of course, now, anyone who has a position on inerrancy that departs from this recent document is considered suspect and not in line with that great tradition that extends back to the fist century Church.

-Today’s Christians are so afraid of limiting the scope of their ministry by angering other believers with an individualistic understanding of the Faith and so afraid that any deviation from the majority of evangelical believers means apostasy of the Faith and thus a severe damage to their spiritual life, that the vast majority of “ministerial” believers cannot even entertain positions not traditional to the particular body of believers to which they belong, even if that tradition is only a quarter century old.

-As I have stated elsewhere, there is a significant percentage of evangelical leaders and educators who fear both dissent and deviation from their own individual understanding of the Faith. Because of this, the Christian student seeking an intellectual education of the faith will not find a well-rounded and thorough presentation of the faith given at many evangelical schools. Many Christian educators are not presenting every answer to every theological question raised. At most, the educator will present the standard evangelical answer and then the antithetical answer which tends to be radical liberalism to the average evangelical student. That there are numerous other examples in between these two polarities is ignored by the educator and oblivious to the student. Therefore, the Christian student will only ever be given one conceivable answer to any theological question and never give serious consideration to any other conceivable answer. “Why should they? There is only one answer to this question and it was given by my professor as the only answer.” In this, evangelical schools are rendered as mere indoctrination mills ill-equipping students for practical ministerial lives. THEREFORE, the majority of evangelical “ministers” and “laity” are never told standard theological options which intellectually satisfy the presented theological question and conform to the essentials of their faith. The only way one can find these answers is to go looking for his or herself.

To this, the contemporary evangelical believes that the historicity of the Scriptures is synonymous with their contemporary understanding of history because they have not been told any other option. Therefore, the beginning student of the book of Daniel can become quite shaken when he is confronted with the facts of the matter.


What are some of these?

- The book of Daniel states that the Deportation to Babylon occurred in 606 BC. It states:

In the third year of the reign of Jehoi'akim king of Judah came Nebuchadnez'zar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoi'akim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god.
This appears to be a description of the first siege of Jerusalem in 597 BC, which occurred in the twelfth year of Jehoiakim and into the reign of his son Jehoiachin. (see 2 Kings 24 and 2 Chronicles 36). The third year of Jehoiakim (606 BC), saw Nebuchadrezzar not yet King of Babylon, and the Egyptians still dominant in the region. Advocates of an early date of Daniel generally explain this by positing an additional, otherwise unmentioned, siege of Jerusalem in 605 BC, shortly after the Battle of Carchemish.
[This would be the equivalent of saying that the United States of America entered the WWII when Hideki Tojo, prime minister of Japan launched an attack on Pearl Harbor in 1931, 10 years prior to the actual event and a decade prior to Tojo becoming prime minister.]
-The book of Daniel states that Nebuchadnezzar went mad. However, this event does not appear in any other historical record. In the Dead Sea Scrolls a fragment known as The Prayer of Nabonidus (4QPrNab) discusses a disease suffered by Nabonidus, and it is thought that the insanity of Nebuchadnezzar discussed by Daniel is actually evidence that an oral tradition of one strange disease was actually transmogrified through retelling into a tale mistakenly recorded by Daniel.

[This would be like saying that President Franklin Roosevelt was impeached from office instead of Richard Nixon.]

- The book of Daniel states that Nebuchadnezzar is succeeded by a "son," Belshazzar, presented as the last king of Babylon. The disembodied hand appears writing on the wall to warn Belshazzar of doom. Daniel 5:30 says Belshazzar died that night when "Darius the Mede" captured Babylon. However, the last king of Babylon was Nabu-na'id, commonly called Nabonidus. He ruled from 555 to 539 B.C.E., when Babylon was captured by the Persians under Cyrus the Great -- not Darius and the Medes. Nabonidus had a son called Belshazzar (or Bel-shar-usur in Babylonian) who apparently ruled for a decade as crown prince while Nabonidus was in Arabia. What Nabonidus did in Arabia is unknown, but the story of "Nebuchadnezzar's" insanity may be a reference to a bout of insanity or lengthy depression in Nabonidus, who apparently was very unpopular in Babylon -- or so the victorious Persians later claimed. In short, Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar.

[This would be the equivalent of saying that George W. Bush is the son of Jimmy Carter and not George H.W. Bush.]

-The Book of Daniel states the following succession of nations: Babylonian, Median, Persian and Greek. However, the Median Empire was destroyed by the Persian Emperor Cyrus the Great in 550 BCE, a full 6 years prior to Nabonidus becoming king of Babylon. In 539 BC, Cyrus, not Darius, defeated Nabonidus (not Belshazzar) and occupied Babylon.

[This would be the equivalent of stating that Hitler defeated the Turkish Empire prior to invading the Soviet Union when, in fact, the Turkish Empire was defeated prior to Hitler coming to power.]


-Besides these interesting “historical inaccuracies”, there are numerous words, phrases and subject matters which point to a 164 BCE date of composition, not 564 BCE.

[This would be the equivalent of reading a play by William Shakespeare and seeing the words and concepts: “computer”, “email”, “nuclear weapon”, “triple heart bypass surgery” and “two planes will fly into two buildings one hundred levels high.” Even if one states that these are prophetic events (which can happen by the Holy Spirit) it would be incomprehensible to anyone for 4 hundred years. “What’s a plane?”, “What’s a computer?”, “What’s triple heart bypass surgery?” but told in a matter of fact way without explanation or the hint that any explanation is needed.]


These issues are not slight. There are numerous ancient documents from various people and places at different times that unanimously confirm that something is historically different about the history of the book of Daniel. When can either consider that maybe this particular book is not historical but contains apocalyptic truths quite different from straight forward historical facts … or we must similarly argue that George W. Bush is indeed the son of Jimmy Carter.

We live in a time of modern science and modern historical and literary studies. We assume that our modern and Western ways of understanding history is the best and only way of doing so. Because we believe that our way is the best and only way, anything historical document that does not conform to such modern precision is deemed inferior. Therefore, many evangelical believers, claiming to have much disdain for modern historical and critical studies, refuse to accept the belief that historical documents written two to three thousand years ago would be different from documents written two to three years ago. How odd? We hate modern history because it proves that Biblical history is not like the modern history that we hate. We expect that all historical recordings must carry the objective and factual precision that we ourselves have come to apply to the historical task since the Enlightenment period. Therefore, when the Biblical documents do not conform to our cultural expectations we attempt to discredit those who are pointing out these unfulfilled expectations and then try to prove how these documents do indeed fulfill our expectations. What are we doing? Eisegesis. We are reading into Scripture what we think Scripture should say. We are not letting Scripture speak for itself. We want it to confirm what we think should be the truth. In this manner, we are no different from the liberals who neglect the Scriptural teaching about homosexuality, fornication, the exclusivity of Christ and any other doctrine they do not believe in. How close you are to each other!

Also there are many more things shocking about the edition, saying that the Son of Man written about wasn't referring to the Lord Jesus Christ at all.

This person has got it backwards. The author of Daniel, by mentioning the “Son of Man” was not referring to Jesus; Jesus by mentioning the “Son of Man” was referring to Daniel. What this person is referring to is a hermeneutic employed by Jesus that almost all fundamentalists and many conservatives without seminary education have always stumbled. The “Son of Man” mentioned in Daniel as it was originally written did not refer to Jesus but referred to “collective Israel”. All who originally read this section of Daniel understood this metaphor. They understood that the author was using the “Son of Man” to refer to “collective Israel”. No one thought this image referred to Jesus because Jesus did not yet exist. However, when Jesus did come into existence, He took the image of the “Son of Man” from Daniel and claimed it as His own and began to refer to Himself as the “Son of Man.” The “Son of Man” in Daniel did not predict Jesus but the “Son of Man” does describe Jesus because Jesus used it as a self-reference. Jesus is compared to David, Moses and Elijah but He isn’t anyone of these people and no one who first read the OT thought so. Now this does not mean that we should not understand Jesus in terms of the “Son of Man” from Daniel. Far from it!

What? My question is summed up in the opening title. If you believe that the Bible is just some loose collection of historical annotations by pious man, then why bother reading it?

The authors of this commentary are Christians, they are believers. They do believe in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on the Book of Daniel and its writers. In short, they do not believe that this is just some loose collection of historical annotations by pious men.

If this book is not the infallible and Holy and Perfect Word of the One and Only God Almighty then why waste the energy?

The authors certainly do not believe that this book is fallible. Far from it! However, what is interesting is that while these authors are not questioning the authority of the book of Daniel, the individual commenting here believes that they must believe that. Why? Obviously because this individual has a particular idea of what it means to be “infallible”, “Holy” and “Perfect”. The commentators do not share the same definition of what it means to be “infallible”, “Holy” and “Perfect” as this individual, so, according to him, they must then not believe the book of Daniel to be “infallible”, “Holy” and “Perfect”.

If the truth isn't the truth then I want nothing to do with it; I'll quit all things to do with the faith and spend every waking minute finding earthly pleasure and committing crimes. Why not?

How interesting. This person is stating that if the “truth” as he sees it is not the “truth” as he sees it, then he would abandon the Faith and seek a life as a hedonist.

We are often told by preachers that we should not turn from the Faith as soon as we hear a hard teaching. We are told that we should not lose faith in the doctrines of the Church as soon as we hear one we cannot believe to be true. We are so often encouraged to have faith in the teachings of the Scriptures even if they seem incredible. Why? Because we are to have faith in the God that the Scriptures proclaim. And yet, this individual is threatening to abandon the Faith when it does not conform to his own view of what should or should not be.

As Paul said, if we believe these things in vain, we are most to be pitied above all men. It's crazy to follow a religion you don't believe in, but if you do believe, Aristotle's law of contradiction applies; i.e., the Word of God cannot not be the Word of God, and if it is the Word of God, then it must be treated as such, and to question every prophecy, dumb-down and pragmatize every allegory and mysterious thing, to give some scientific explanation for anything awe-inspiring, is to assert that a finite man knows more about the book then the One and Only God knows, the very One who created trees, ink, the universe, Daniel the man, Daniel the book, heaven, and hell.

And yet this individual assumes that he knows more about the book of Daniel than others. The commentators have a view of the book of Daniel which does not conflict with their view of its authority and truthfulness or their faith in God.

This individual appears to be somewhat scared of serious historical criticism and literary analysis. He appears to fear that if anything is less than “magical” or “mysterious” then it must not then be from God. How odd is this? “If the book of Daniel does not appear to be “miraculous” to us then it is not from God.” Why does he believe this? Because he has been told by atheists and others that if a logical explanation is available then it must not be from God … and this individual believes them! But why? Why believe them? But, he does, and then he spends the rest of his ministry attempting to make sure that no one understands any aspect of the Faith. This has been the same thing with theories of evolution. “If man was not made by some “miracle” then God didn’t do it.” Why do we think this? The rain that falls from the sky isn’t “miraculous”; meteorologists now know how rain is made. Does this mean that God doesn’t create rain? Of course not! All of us were born from a woman by means of a human sperm and egg that grew for nine months. Scientists know how humans are reproduced. Were any of us not created by God? Does anyone believe that God couldn’t have created us because we know how we were created? Of course not!

Just because something can be explained does not mean that God didn’t do it. Not everything that God does is beyond our comprehension. Some things that once were beyond our comprehension no longer are. Is God any less miraculous? Of course not!

If every single solitary miracle of the Bible was rationally and scientifically explained beyond a shadow of a doubt then it would mean not effect the Christian Faith or in our belief that God caused these “miracles” one iota.

Jesus the Savior said call no one on earth father, for one is your father (God), no one on earth leader, for one is your leader (Jesus), and no one your teacher, for one is your teacher (the Holy Spirit, and the Three are One). John said in 1 John that the anointing you received (i.e., the Holy Spirit) causes you to have need to be taught by no one. Forget scholarship, commentary, priests, pastors, popes, and the like, buy an interlinear copy of the Greek New Testament (such as George Berry's with Strong's numbering and two Greek dictionaries in the back),

But was not John teaching them when he wrote those words in John 1?

I hate to post such statements because I know that no almost no Southern Baptist or evangelical agrees with him but I do want to put everything he says in his context.

have faith that Jesus wrote every word, and be taught from the great and Eternal Spirit of Truth and Love and Knowledge and Wisdom; for you are to answer to Him on the day of Judgment, and not to earthly scribes. The Pope claims to be infallible [also note in the book of Matthew at the ordaining of the first pope, i.e., Jesus calling Peter the Rock and giving him the keys of the kingdom(if you believe that to be the interpretation), that a few verses later He called Him Satan- Matt. 16:23, showing that even if there was such a thing as a Pope, we wouldn't be infallible], but the Bible isn't?

So are the letters of 1 Peter and 1 Peter fallible?

So Peter wasn’t infallible because of what he said in Matt. 16:22, but what is written in 16:22 is infallible?


As Paul said, they wish to shut you out, so that you will seek them. Do not seek them, seek Jesus, "for whoever confesses with their mouth the Lord Jesus and believes in their heart that God raised Him from the dead, shall be saved" (Romans 10:9). And again, "everyone, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved" (Joel 3:5). I love you all very much in Jesus; sincerely, a concerned brother -Col. 1:9

Well, I would listen to what he was saying but I don’t need to be taught by anyone except God … and God is teaching me that I should listen to the authors of the Anchor Bible Commentary on Daniel.

At some point in my ministry, I intend to teach a class on the Book of Daniel (even though my particular emphasis is on the New Testament, I would like to teach on Daniel, Genesis, Jonah and Ecclesiastes). When I do so, I will give my students all of the various interpretations of the book and give them the various proposed solutions to different questions about the book. I will tell the students what is the preferred interpretation by their particular body of believers and identify it as such. I will tell the students what interpretation I hold to and identify it as such. In this way, I am being open, honest, equitable and giving the student various options with which to consider as they consider their own faith AND preparing them for the varied opinions which they will encounter in the real world beyond the pews of evangelicalism … if they ever decide to venture that far.