The Skeptical Review Online - Print Edition

In my first response to Everette Hatcher's attempt to prove a 6th-century B. C. authorship of the book of Daniel, I gave him the benefit of the doubt by assuming that he had not deliberately misrepresented his sources but had only used secondhand references without checking the context of the quotations they had cited. I have since learned that this was not the case, because when I was unable to locate some of his sources, Hatcher sent me photocopies of the original works he had cited. Hence, I have to assume now that Hatcher knew all along that such scholars as H. H. Rowley and Norman W. Porteous were firm advocates of the Maccabean period of authorship and that the fragmented quotations that he lifted out of context from their books were never intended to suggest in any way that the book of Daniel was written in the 6th century B. C. by a Hebrew prophet who had gained privileged status in the Babylonian court or that their view of a Maccabean authorship was in any sense unsupportable.

A familiar type of inerrantist distortion results from the omission of a qualifying but that follows a fragmented quotation. The first part of the quotation appears to favor the inerrantist view until the qualifying but statement is read. By eliminating the buts and howevers, inerrantists try to leave the impression that certain scientists and scholars agree with them. Hatcher did this in response to my claim that the writer of Daniel obviously "considered the Median and Persian kingdoms to be separate empires." He quoted Dr. Samuel Driver as having admitted, "In the book of Daniel the `Medes and Persians' are, it is true, sometimes represented as united" (March/April 1998, p. 2). I had seen this inerrantist tactic enough to know that even without having read Driver's work, the parenthetical "it is true" indicated that a qualifying but statement followed the fragment that Hatcher had quoted. When I was finally able to check the context of the quotation, I found that I was right. Here is Driver's statement in context:

In the book of Daniel the "Medes and Persians" are, it is true, sometimes represented as united (v.28, vi.8, 12, 15, cf. viii. 20), but elsewhere they are represented as distinct; after the fall of Babylon, Darius the Mede "receives the kingdom" (v.31), and acts in it as king (vi.1, 2, 15, 25, 26); he reigns for a time--it is not said how long-- and is succeeded by Cyrus, who is called pointedly "the Persian" (vi.28, cf. x.1, and contrast ix.1, xi.1); the two horns of the ram in viii.3 are distinguished from each other, one (representing the Persian empire) being higher (i.e., more powerful) than the other (the Median empire), and coming up after it. Thus, in the view of the author of the book, the more powerful rule of Persia is preceded by a "kingdom" of the Medes, beginning immediately after the death of Belshazzar (S. R. Driver, D. D., The Book of Daniel, Cambridge University Press, 1900, p. 29, emphasis added).

So when the fragmented quotation is read it context, one can clearly see that Driver did not intend to express agreement with Hatcher's view that the second empire in Nebuchadnezzar's vision was a combined Medo-Persian empire, which fundamentalists must contend for in order to have a prophecy that an everlasting kingdom of God would be established in the days of the Roman Empire. Driver was merely acknowledging that some verses in Daniel speak of the Medes and the Persians as a unit, but this does not override the fact that the writer of Daniel clearly indicated (as Driver noted above) a belief that the Medes conquered Babylon, ruled over it for a time, and were then replaced by a Persian ruler. The few references to Medes and Persians, as if they were a single entity or unit, could be easily explained by merely assuming that the writer was aware that Persia had been a vassal state of Media until Cyrus the Great rebelled against Astyages in 549 B. C. After this, Media was annexed and made a satrapy (province) of Persia. Hence, the Persian Empire was in that sense a Medo-Persian Empire, because it consisted of the territories of both Media and Persia. The problem in the book of Daniel is that the writer seemed not to understand when the unification took place. He presented the Medes as the conquerers of Babylon in 539 B. C., when in actuality the Median empire no longer existed at that time, having already been absorbed by Persia ten years earlier.

If Hatcher had bothered to read Driver's comment immediately preceding the fragment that he quoted, he would have seen where Driver pointed out that after the Persian absorption of Media, it was even commonplace for the Persians to be referred to as Medes:

The second and third kingdoms are, in all probability, the Median and the Persian. The home of the Medes was in the mountainous country N. and N. E. of Babylon, and S. W. of the Caspian Sea; they are often mentioned in the Assyrian inscriptions from the 8th century B. C.; but they were first consolidated into an important power by Cyaxares, B. C. 624-584, during whose reign, in 607, they were the chief instruments in bringing about the destruction of Nineveh. Cyaxares was succeeded by Astyages, whose soldiers deserted en masse to Cyrus (B. C. 549); and the empire of the Medes thus passed into the hands of the Persians. Their name was however long remembered; for the Greeks regularly spoke of the Persians as Medes (p. 28).

So a reason as simple as this could explain why the writer of Daniel sometimes referred to the Medes and the Persians as a unit, but it isn't quite so easy to explain how that an official in the royal court of Babylon at the time of its fall to Persia under the leadership of Cyrus the Great could have made the mistake of saying that Babylon fell to "Darius the Mede." This is a problem that Hatcher cannot explain by quoting "liberal" scholars out of context.

On the problem that this historical blunder poses to the fundamentalist view of a 6th-century B. C. authorship of Daniel, Hatcher quibbled that "nowhere does the writer state that Darius was `the king of the Medes' or the `king of Media'" (March/April 1998, p. 3). I assume that Hatcher was resorting to the inerrantist claim that Darius may not have been a king but only an official whom Cyrus had appointed as governor over Babylon, but this quibble won't work either. As we will soon see, the word "king" was often applied to "Darius the Mede," and he was addressed several times as "king." Even if the title of king had not been attributed to Darius, we could determine that the writer of Daniel still thought that Darius was a king of Media who had conquered Babylon and then ruled over it as king for a time. Let's notice, for example, that no one--not even the inerrantists--dispute the fact that Cyrus was king of Persia. In Daniel 10:1, the writer said, "In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar." The writer here referred to Cyrus as king, but he also dated his "vision" in this chapter by referring to the year of Cyrus's reign (the 3rd year). Hence, we have reason to believe that when the writer dated his visions in chapters 9 and 11 as having occurred in the "first year of Darius the Mede" (9:1; 11:1), he was using the reign of someone he thought was king as a method of dating. There isn't enough space available to look at even a fraction of the biblical passages where writers used the year of a king's reign as a way of dating events, so if this was a common way of dating biblical events, why should we consider Daniel 9:1 and 11:1 to be any different?

Besides the method of dating, there are other indications that the writer considered "Darius the Mede" to be a king. In 6:1-3, Darius was presented as having powers that could have been exercised only by a king.

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps, to be over the whole kingdom; and over these, three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm (emphasis added).

We could hardly imagine a "governor" with the power to reorganize an entire kingdom as Darius allegedly did in this passage. Surely, only a reigning monarch could have made such decisions, and besides that, the passage twice referred to Darius as "king," so perhaps Hatcher would not be so wedded to his fundamentalist view of the authorship of Daniel if he would just read the book a little more carefully. However, if the information above is not enough to convince him, he should read on in chapter 6. After the reorganization of the kingdom, Daniel gained so much favor with Darius that the other governors and satraps plotted against him.

So these governors and satraps thronged before the king, and said thus to him: "King Darius, live forever! All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter." Therefore King Darius signed the written decree (vs. 6-9, emphasis added).

So three times Darius was called king in this passage, and twice he was addressed as "King Darius." Twenty-two more times in this chapter Darius was either referred to as king or was called king, so there can be no doubt that the writer of Daniel thought that "Darius the Mede" was a king who reigned over Babylon after its fall. The last verse in chapter 6 even says that "this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius." Kings reign, not governors.

Perhaps Hatcher will say that he said only that Darius was never called the king of the Medes or the king of Media. That may be true, but the text of Daniel nevertheless indicates that this is what the writer thought. Darius was twice called "the Mede" (5:31; 11:1), and in a text that explicitly stated that he was made "king over the realm of the Chaldeans (Babylonians)," the writer said that he was of the lineage or seed of the Medes (9:1). So in a book that repeatedly referred to someone named Darius as "king" and that consistently referred to him as a Mede, why should anyone think that the author of the book meant anything else but that this Darius was a king of Media who ruled over Babylon for a time between the reigns of Belshazzar and Cyrus the Great? Regardless, it still remains true that historical records show that Babylon fell to Cyrus, who then reigned as king in Babylon until the end of his accession year (539-538 B. C.) and then moved his royal residence to the former Median city of Ecbatana (see "Cyrus," Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, 1987, p. 251). So whether the writer of Daniel ever specifically referred to Darius as "the king of Media" is irrelevant. The text of the book clearly referred to him as a reigning king in Babylon, but the historical data leave no room for a King Darius between Belshazzar and Cyrus.

In trying to shore up his quibble about the absence of a statement directly identifying Darius as "the king of Media," Hatcher said that "Dr. Robert H. Pfeiffer of Harvard University admitted the author of Daniel was `a very learned man' and `a sage'" (March/April 1998, p. 3). I looked for the reference that Hatcher gave (Pfeiffer's Introduction to the Old Testament, Harper and Brothers, 1948, p. 757), and found that the statements alluded to were actually on page 766. Here Pfeiffer did express the view that the author of Daniel had demonstrated "a range of reading [that] was wide," but he went on to say that the writer's knowledge was "of popular tales, circulating orally" (p. 766), so this was hardly a ringing endorsement of the historical accuracy of the book. In fact, Pfeiffer went on to discuss some of the historical inaccuracies in the book, including the confusion about "this imaginary Darius living before Cyrus" (p. 757). Earlier, Pfeiffer had said that "the amount of historical information [in Daniel] gradually improves as we move from the days of Nebuchadnezzar to those of Antiochus Epiphanes" (p. 756), so Pfeiffer was clearly a proponent of the view that Daniel was written during the Maccabean period of the 2nd century B. C.

Hatcher knew all of this, of course, because he later blasted his own critic for recognizing the "knowledge" of the author of Daniel while rejecting the 6th-century B. C. dating of the book. "Pfeiffer must have assumed that this `sage' had never read 2 Chronicles 36:20," Hatcher complained, "where it is said that the Jews were servants to Nebuchadnezzar `and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia'" (March/April 1998, p. 3). Hatcher sees this as a clear indication that "the Persian reign came immediately after the Babylonian reign."

There are so many flaws in Hatcher's argument that I hardly know where to begin responding to them. First, even if we agree with Hatcher's assessment of the statement in 1 Chronicles, that would mean only that the writer of this book was correctly informed about the order of regnal succession in ancient Babylon, but it would not prove that the writer of Daniel was so informed. Hatcher is using the same tactic that we have seen in the articles of Roger Hutchinson and other inerrantists. He is attempting to prove biblical inerrancy by assuming biblical inerrancy. At least indirectly, he is arguing that if the writer of 1 Chronicles knew that a Persian reign came immediately after the Babylonian reign, then the writer of Daniel must have known it too. In other words, Hatcher wants to assume the inerrancy of everything that has been published under the title of Holy Bible, and so if it is known that a Persian rule succeeded the Babylonian rule in ancient Babylon, then no matter how much the book of Daniel may indicate that the writer thought otherwise, we have to assume that this writer must not have meant what his text seems to indicate that he thought. To believe otherwise would be to believe that the Bible is not inerrant, and we simply can't have that. Such is the way that biblicists think.

There's an even bigger problem in Hatcher's assumption that 2 Chronicles 36:20 should somehow prove that the writer of Daniel knew that a "Persian reign came immediately after the Babylonian reign," and that problem is a known historical inaccuracy in the very passage Hatcher has cited. The Chronicler said that "those [in Jerusalem] who escaped from the sword" Nebuchadnezzar "carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, but this is not true. Nebuchadnezzar died in 562 B. C. and was succeeded by his son Amel-Marduk, who reigned until 560 B. C., at which time he was killed in a coup that was led by his brother-in-law Nergal-Sharezer ((Neriglissar). At this time, Nebuchadnezzar's dynasty ended. Nergal-Sharezer ruled until 556 B. C. and was succeeded by his son Labsi-Marduk, who was deposed by Nabonidus, who was the king of Babylon at the time of its conquest by Cyrus. At this time, Nabonidus's son Belshazzar was possibly serving in Babylon as co-regent, but the "sons" of Nebuchadnezzar had not ruled Babylon for over 20 years. Hence, the Chronicler was incorrect in saying that the captives from Jerusalem served Nebuchadnezzar and his sons until the Persian conquest. This inaccuracy hardly lends support to Hatcher's apparent attempt to prove that the book of Daniel must be considered historically correct because 2 Chronicles 36:20 is.

An examination of the "critic's admissions" about Daniel shows that these admissions are relatively minor and in no way damage the widely held scholastic view of a 2nd-century B. C. authorship. In the next issue, I will discuss the problem of historical inaccuracies in Daniel, which is one of the major reasons why scholars have assigned a 2nd-century B. C. date to this book. Hatcher may then respond to my articles if he wishes.