Posted by Bibleman [Bibleman] on November 17, 1999 at 14:47:43 {xx2d.1sWpQMSSTtTA17sslyACFuF8c}:
In Reply to: ******Why Believe the Bible? posted by Cygnus on November 17, 1999 at 08:05:09:
Hello Cy,
Just a "reference" note for you to consider. First, thanks for that reference.
My limited familiarity with this issue presents a complication and that is, as you know, Xerxes and Artaxerxes were the same king and Daniel and Ezra/Nehemiah were threatened historically because they were too close to the revisions in the Persian Period. So it appears Daniel may have had "special handling" to preserve it.
As you know the Jews rewrote "Ezra/Nehemiah" with apocryphal "Esdras" which moved some of the events around. So some of the problems with Daniel's late writing may have been because this book was suppressed. All records which exposed the conspiracy of Persian period expansion would have been in danger of being destroyed. So I'm not surprised this book is thought to have been written later since it is so prophetic of chronology.
But ultimately when the final "copy" or recopy was done doesn't mean Daniel didn't have the original writing much earlier. Just because what we have now was "copied" later doesn't mean the original wasn't much more ancient.
Thanks for the reference. "Esdras" "Daniel" and "Esther" came out of the revision period and were handled differently.
Cheers,
Bibleman