Talk:Belshazzar/Archive 2

"Son" is to be understood in an ex officio sense, not one of strict blood relation. Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian kings, especially usurpers, are known to refer to any one of their royal predecessors as their ex officio fathers. (Kitchen (2003), On the Reliability of the Old Testament, p. 74). E.g. Sargon I refers to "kings my fathers" and Nebuchadrezzar (despite a gap of well over a thousand years) to Naram-sin his "father" (Dougherty (2008), Nabonidus and Belshazzar, p. 194 fn. 642). Nabonidus refers to Assyrian kings as his "royal ancestors" and saw himself as the true successor of Nebuchadrezzar: ( see Beaulieu, Reign of Nabonidus..., pp. 143; 111, 112, 123). The Black Obelisk of Shalmanazzar III, Jehu is called a "son" of Omri (noted in another section above). There is also no distinction between father and grandfather, or son and grandson, as in English (per common knowledge of Aramaic/Hebrew). Nabonidus, as noted in an inscription, "beheld a statue of Sargon, father of Naram-Sin." (Beaulieu, Reign, p. 134); Sargon was his grandfather. Nebuchadrezzar, also, of Naram-Sin his "father" (above). As the offering of "third ruler in the kingdom" in Daniel implies an existing co-regency, the second being his father Nabonidus who entrusted Belshazzar with "kingship" (Kitchen, pp. 73, 74, 517; Beaulieu, p. 187), straining beyond these bounds in either direction is unconstructive. Proveallthings (talk) 05:41, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Last reference clarification/correction: Kitchen supports summary statement; see Beaulieu p. 186 for entrusting of kingship and regime of Belshazzar. Proveallthings (talk) 05:46, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

Last reference clarification/correction: Kitchen supports summary statement; see Beaulieu p. 186 for entrusting of kingship and regime of Belshazzar. Proveallthings (talk) 05:46, 22 August 2018 (UTC)

It would be interesting to try and rewrite the paragraph above without using Kitchen. Kitchen is well known for -- how to put this gently? -- coming to conclusions that other scholars don't agree with but that agree extremely well with (some versions of) evangelical Christian ideas about history.

If we want to talk about what exactly "son" means in this particular context, I'd rather see us relying on scholars who stand in something like mainstream biblical studies, rather than Kenneth Kitchen's book on why the Bible is historically reliable. Does this view of the term "son" (as related to this particular passage) appear outside of Kitchen?

I started with the Oxford Bible Commentary, just because I refer to it a lot. Then, I went in order through every source in the bibliography of Wikipedia's Book of Daniel and searched Google books in every single one that had a Google Books preview for the word "Belshazzar" and took any reference that I saw to the "son" question. I stopped at Paul Reddit, because I figured what I've collected so far should be enough to make the point. Any interested person could pick up where I left off and see if the situation suddenly changes.

There it looks like everyone but Andrew Hill and Stephen Miller who comments on the issue leans toward seeing "son" as an error on Daniel's part. And, as one would expect, Andrew Hill is introduced in his commentary as a teacher at Wheaton, an evangelical Protestant school, while Miller writes for the New American Commentary, which "collects the best in contemporary evangelical scholarship", according to the blurbs online. Everybody sees "son" as an error here except for people who display a theological commitment to a tradition which holds that the Bible does not contain errors.Alephb (talk) 01:47, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. Assyriologists Dougherty and Beaulieu provide the inscriptionary evidence cited here. These inscriptions are carved on stone and baked clay tablets and can be verified: opinions can be shown wrong by verifiable facts. Belshazzar's mother is not known; to discount or confirm blood relation exceeds available data. I note in support of above: Nebuchadnezzar is not related to Naram-sin, whom he calls his "ancient father". They also lived more than a millennium apart. Sargon was the grandfather of Naram-sin, not his "father." Sargon refers to "kings my fathers", without any blood relation to the preceding bloodline. At that event one must explain why these usages are correct, and Daniel is the exception to this usage. I have never seen this done. I actually own Miller's commentary, and he as well confirms what was said above. He writes, "'Father' may refer to one's immediate father, grandfather, ancestor, or as in the case of kings, a predecessor. Likewise 'son' may mean one's immediate offspring, grandson, descendant, or successor." That is stated in the paragraph just before the one you cite. I trust, however, you simply overlooked this. An opinion only carries weight so far as facts support it. Proveallthings (talk) 20:23, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

The germane WP:PAG is WP:FRINGE. Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:27, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

@Proveallthings: I did overlook Stephen Miller's reasoning, and I did it intentionally. And it's because me and you are attempting to do two different things right now. You're attempting to use evidence to find what is true. I'm attempting to survey the literature to find out what most scholars say about this particular question. That's because Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia of truth, but a service for summarizing what the scholarly community says.

If we were here to discover what is true together on the Wikipedia talk pages, then you would be doing what is right (marshalling the linguistic arguments), and I would be doing something wrong (just quoting a bunch of authorities and pointing out that "your side" here consists only of people with a particular theological set of commitments). So let me be clear. I'm not saying you're wrong about "father". You, and Kenneth Kitchen, might be right. I'm just saying that, in terms of the way Wikipedia weighs sources, Kenneth Kitchen's opinion is out on the fringes in the scholarly world. Alephb (talk) 21:36, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your kinder response. Per common knowledge, ancient Aramaic and Hebrew use the words in this manner, and this usage is ubiquitous in the Old and New Testaments. For example, Elisha, son of Shaphat, calls Elijah his ex officio father, for example. Editors have a responsibility to vet their sources, and also to not cherry pick data, and to provide correct page numbers for references. Not everything has consensus, and WP:COMMONSENSE applies. I understand verifiability, not truth, but the statements I have provided are indeed verifiable from multiple respected sources, and the languages didn't use grandfather/grandson. You note a Google search: perhaps you came up with a different result. Dougherty, an Assyriologist, writes "It was customary for Babylonian kings to refer to any one of their predecessors as their father" is actually the first hit to "Belshazzar" on Google books, before Hammer. Hammer does not propose this text as an error. Next is Seow, whom you omit (pp. 76, 77, as cited in the article), and who writes, "One should keep in mind that in the Semitic languages, 'father' is not limited to that of a biological or even adoptive parent. The term may be used simply of an ancestor or a progenitor... By the same token, the term 'son' is used of a descendant, a successor, or simply a member of a group or class", and he cited examples overlapping certain above. After that is Wiseman, Nebuchadrezzar and Babylon, pp. 11, 12, who denies it is an error and subscribes to the Nitocris hypothesis. Chavalas, in the references, also noted that Belshazzar is called the grandson of Nebuchadrezzar, which confirms to Aramaic usage of "son". So on my end, I'm left with your word that you were thourough, but what I see conflicts with your assessment. I can provide more references in my favor than I have. I cite sources that state things succinctly and accurately for the same of talk, for benefit of fellow editors. Cheers! Proveallthings (talk) 21:49, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

What I did, as I said above, was go through each book the bibliography section of the page Book of Daniel, in order, search within the book for "Belshazzar" and, if any of those results showed an opinion on the "son" question, quoted a bit of it. That's it. I was looking for a broad initial survey to try to put Kenneth Kitchen's opinion in perspective, using a method that couldn't be accused of cherry-picking, and which would include the sorts of books that Wikipedia already cited. So I searched within Barry Bandstra's book, then within Shaul Bar's book, and so on up to Paul Reddit. I've tried to be as clear as possible about exactly what I did, and if you try to replicate what I did you can see for yourself whether I cherry-picked at all. The goal of working so methodically was to try and see whether Kenneth Kitchen was representative of how other scholars tend to read this word (because sometimes he is and sometimes he isn't). I would have hoped that spelling out my exact procedure would have warded off accusations of cherry-picking, and it would have been easy enough for you to check my work if you wanted to. If you don't want to, that's fine, and if you have some other search you prefer, that's fine too, but it's simply not true that I left you with just my word on this. Alephb (talk) 22:27, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. I did check your work. I always assume good faith. But Chavalas, Dougherty, and Seow cited in the bibliography support what I am saying, though your remarks left the impression they do not. I replicated your Google search: early hits favorable to my viewpoint were not cited by you, as noted above. I do not know you and you do not know me: I intended perhaps your comments were more hastily researched. By mistake you omitted a pertinent comment from Miller. The Collins quote not only is absent on p. 37, it doesn't even turn up in the search of the whole book. In Expositor's, p.107 (not p.30, as you say), "rigidly" is not exactly a favorable qualification. Offhand, I can add also R.K. Harrison, Introduction, p. 1120, " the reference in Daniel 5:18 to Belshazzar as a son of Nebuchadnezzar is also correct according to Semitic usage, where the term 'son' could also mean 'grandson,' for which there was no separate word, or simply 'descendant,' 'offspring.' As far as ancient royalty was concerned, the interest was predominantly in the succession itself rather than the actual lineal relationship of individuals." Also, Assyriologist Alan Millard, "Of course, father may stand for grandfather or for a more remote ancestor in Semitic languages" and speculates that the mother of Belshazzar might even have been a daughter of Nebuchadnezzar ("Daniel in Babylon: An Accurate Record"). The NIV Cultural Studies Bible (C.S. Keener, J.H. Walton) in 2016, at Daniel 5, "In the Semitic languages 'father' and 'son' can be used of more distant forbears and descendants" and notes that the Black Obelisk (mentioned above) calls Jehu "son of Omri" "even though he had no blood relationship to him. He is simply being designated as the successor to a well-known king." (as relating to usage in Daniel 5). I would not use the latter in an article itself. So Seow, Dougherty, Kitchen, Miller, Millard, Chavalas, Keener & Walton, Harrison, Beaulieu are cited in support, thus far. I have no need of maintaining Kitchen as a source. Now, I believe your good intentions, though I speak thus. Cheers! Proveallthings (talk) 05:03, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, by "intention" you omitted a pertinent remark by Miller. Proveallthings (talk) 05:05, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Apologies. I found the Collins quote. Proveallthings (talk) 05:18, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

You did not check my work by replicating my search. You keep saying that you checked my work, but then you say things that show that you didn't. You are free to not check my work (I'm not asking you to), but on Wikipedia you are not free to keep misrepresenting what I did.

Let me repeat myself a third time, and see if I get through. I went to the Wikipedia article called Book of Daniel (you can find it by clicking on Book of Daniel), and searched inside of every source in the bibliography section, starting with Berry Bandstra. You can find the section I keep telling you I'm talking about by clicking here: . Now, the people cited in that bibliography section -- I'll list them so you don't get confused and keep repeated your false accusations -- are Bandstra, Bar, Boyer, Brettler, Carroll, Cohn, Collins, Collins, Collins, Collins, Collins, Collins, Crawford, Cross, Davies, DeChant, Doukhan, Dunn, Godden, Grabbe, Grabbe, Grabbe, Hammer, Harrington, Hill, Hill, Horseley, Knibb, Levine, Lucas, Matthews, McDonald, Miller, Niskanen, Provan, and Reddit. I clicked through to each of those books, and only those books, and then searched within those books for the word "Belshazzar". If that search caused content to pop up in the initial search page that showed any opinion, pro or con, on what the word "son" meant in Daniel 5, I put an excerpt up on my list.

To take just the very first source you mention in the article above, Chavalas, I did not imply that I had looked at Chavalas. As I keep on saying I looked methodically through the section titled B-I-B-L-I-O-G-R-A-P-H-Y of the Wikipedia article entitled B-O-O-K O-F D-A-N-I-E-L, starting at B-A-N-D-S-T-R-A and stopping at R-E-D-D-I-T.

If you want to find other sources that were not on my list and discuss them, you can do that. That is a normal and healthy part of how Wikipedia discussion works. But don't keep misrepresenting what was or wasn't on my list. I have been very clear, from the first comment, about where I got the books I looked through. Alephb (talk) 21:18, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for your response. "I think you are looking at the wrong article bibliography" probably would have been fine, assuming good faith on my end. I tend to skim references when I perceive someone is being less than cordial. Therefore I did overlook you had referenced another article, so I apologize. I'm not focused on The Book of Daniel, but Belshazzar. I will go through that bibliography when I have time. Please forgive my mistake. For false allegations, I had no intent, however, so let's admit we got off on the wrong foot and be amicable. I will read more carefully in the future. To the topic at hand, I think enough references have been presented by me above to answer your demand for making the same claim without citing kitchen, which I have done. So let's start from there. Thank you for your patience. Cheers! Proveallthings (talk) 22:47, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

I will remind you that when you said you would like to see me make the same argument without Kitchen, and you yourself came across Miller who makes the same argument, you admit you intentionally overlooked it. Proveallthings (talk) 23:21, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Daniel Bibliography: "Son"/father as Successor/predecessor; Grandson/grandfather: You stopped before Seow, pp. 76, 77. Carol, Crawford, Reid are from Eerdman's, which all hit at Chavalas article for Belshazzar. So what was said above about failure to mention still stands in that aspect, calling him "grandson." You also omitted mention of Doukhan, who calls Belshazzar the "grandson" of Nebuchad., p. 78. Your omission of Miller also is noted above. Provens uses "predecessor" in commentary for "father" (p.670), which you do not mention. Hill, which you mention.

Silent: Bandstra, Boyer,Brettler, Cross (Oxford; outdated information on Aramaic section), DeChant, Dunn, Godden, Grabbe, Knibb, Levine, Lucas, Matthews, McDonald, Rowland, Ryken, Ryken, Schwartz

Unavailable: Bar, Davies, Grabbe, Grabbe, Sacchi

Useless/indeterminate: Horseley (emperor Belshazzar), Niskanen

Daniel in Error: Collins, Hammer (superseding information neglected in both), Harrington.

Redditt is actually commenting on Baruch, which really does treat Belshazzar as the literal son of Nebuchad., both alive together, only notes he took "son" from Daniel.

So you noted Miller (intentionally omitting unfavorable information) and Hill, but omitted Doukhan, Chavalas, Provens. I am adding Seow, where I ended. Thus far I have turned up:

Son/father as grandson/grandfather, successor/predecessor: Seow, Wiseman, Dougherty, Kitchen, Miller, Millard, Chavalas, Keener & Walton, Harrison, Hill, Doukhan

Error: Collins, Harrington, Hammer, possibly Redditt.

My conclusion is that your list above and statements are overblown, giving a false impression of more numerous witnesses than there were (I do not say intentionally) and of greater consensus than was truly present. You admit you deliberately withheld information from one source, which very much undermined the premise of your argument. Cheers! Proveallthings (talk) 01:21, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

You admit you deliberately withheld information from one source, which very much undermined the premise of your argument. I don't think that's quite fair, given that I wasn't trying to make an argument about which position was true but trying to take a quick stab and doing a head-count of a basically random selection of scholars. But I'm sure both of us could keep pointing to things the other said that don't quite seem right to us, and I'm sure both of us could continue to make tweaks to each other's headcounts of scholars as they stand right now. But if you're game, I'd like to try a different avenue here for a bit and see if we make more headway. Maybe we'd get further if we regroup and head back to the actual wording in the article.

When it comes to how the article handles the "son" issue right now, is there anything specific you'd like to see changed? Because I have no objection to what the article currently says about the word "son". I also have no objection, in principle, to some tweaking of what the article says, depending on the details. Right now the article does show that the issue exists, but doesn't seem to me to force the issue either way. Is the article's current wording satisfactory to you? (On the "son" issue, I mean. I can see by looking above that you have some other issues with the article, but that's another story.) Alephb (talk) 02:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Belshazzar was not in any sense a "son" of Nebuchadnezzar, to whom neither he nor his father were related.PiCo (talk) 11:07, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both for your response. In General (PiCo) it is considerate before jumping into a discussion to familiarize youself with it first. Explanation of the Aramaic idiom of ex officio usage of "father" and "son" as "predecessor" and "successor" has already been discussed above, with ample citation from numerous sources. As for strict blood relation, I myself did not insist on it; the idiom does not require it. But if you want to maintain your POV, then this would suggest you know better about the language and that you know something of his parentage (i.e., the actual identity and lineage of his mother) that at this present moment no one else seems to know. In summary: in official capacity, the Aramaic (and Hebrew) words for "father" and "son" are used to designate a predecessor/successor within the same office, even in spite of actual blood relation. If the numerous references above are insufficient, I can provide more citations in support. In addition, you may simply consult the text and footnotes of the NIV, ESV, NLT, HCSB, VOICE, LEB, CSB, EXB, NASB, ERV, OJB, CEV, GNT where this usage is noted by the respective translation committees (I note for talk only).

My problem (Alephb) is that the article states "son" does not line up with known facts, when the Aramaic idiom is well known and published and verifiable, and that the position of "error" is no longer generally maintained. The note "the term is sometimes used loosely" based on Seow's commentary is so watered down in that statement (he notes what I am saying here) that the whole sentence leaves a false impression. If it is corrected without discussion, then it is putting on a bandaid that night be ripped off unnecessarily. In fact, similar obfuscation occurs multiple times in the article, but I don't wish to open multiple fronts. I hope this helps clarify. Cheers! Proveallthings (talk) 03:11, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

It's not Belshazzar who's claiming that Nebuchadnezzar is his father, it's the Book of Daniel - the error is being made by the book's author, writing in the 2nd century BC, long after the events and with no real knowledge of them. Which is the whole point of that paragraph - the Book of Daniel isn't a history book.PiCo (talk) 10:16, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Proveallthings says: In addition, you may simply consult the text and footnotes of the NIV, ESV, NLT, HCSB, VOICE, LEB, CSB, EXB, NASB, ERV, OJB, CEV, GNT where this usage is noted by the respective translation committees. Anyone wanna hazard a guess as to what all these translations have in common? Two points to whoever figures it out first! Alephb (talk) 22:16, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you both for responding. Both of you are simply "Staying on message" despite ample number sources and supporting evidence from Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, supporting texts from the OT, 13 sources cited (including Seow, pp. 76, 77, PiCo's 'best' source noted above), and rather than verifying you both are resorting to underhanded debate tactics. I honestly don't care for the anti-Christian sentiment ("anyone wanna hazard a guess as to what all these translations have in common?") i.e., an apparent attack on Christians as being supposed deceivers, and neither PiCo nor Alephb qualify as WP:RS, especially not against documented sources. So Ad hominem attacks are as stating you have nothing constructive to contribute. Alephb deliberately witheld information contrary to his viewpoint, and managed to overlook at least three others in his 'process'. PiCo has asserted Daniel in error twice contrary to multiple points and sources above demonstrate.

Daniel 5 (more specifically 2:4-7:28) is written in Imperial Aramaic (current 8th-4th BCE) from the early Achaemenid period (affinity with 6th/5th BCE documents) and this has been the consensus of Aramaic scholars for a very long time. The philological arguments of S.D. Driver, G.R. Driver, and H.H. Rowley have all been superseded based upon discoveries over the last century. I don't know of any language scholar that still dates Daniel 5 to the Hellenistic era, much less the second century: Rosenthal, Kitchen, Kutscher the current standard (who supersedes Rowley, upholds Kitchen), Sokoloff, Folmer, Vasholz, et al. and held additionally by Wenham, Yamauchi, Harrison, Millard, Miller, etc. Accordingly, Collins (p. 70) contains philological arguments (J.A. Montgomery, 1927, H.H. Rowley, 1959) now superseded by K.A. Kitchen (1965), E.Y. Kutscher (1970), M.L. Folmer (1995), and E.M. Yamauchi (various)

It is implicit in Daniel 5 that Belshazzar is the second ruler (co-regent) in the kingdom. Hence he offers Daniel royal colors and the place of "third ruler." Nebuchadnezzar in context is clearly dead. Who then would be the first ruler? Nabonidus. Accordingly multiple scholars have noted this (Dougherty, Millard, Harrison, Miller, Wilson, Baldwin, Kitchen, etc., etc.), as I have also above. Belshazzar was entrusted with "kingship" (Verse Account; Bealieu, Dougherty, Seow, Harrison, Millard, Miller, Baldwin, etc.) In Akkadian-Aramaic bilingual inscriptions, the Akkadian word for "governor" is translated by the Aramaic word for "king" (Millard; also Greenfield, Shaffer) if you wish to be captious about titles in official usage. Cheers! Proveallthings (talk) 07:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

"Biblical inerrantist" is not synonymous with "Christian". Most historians of the Bible/Judaism/Christianity are either Christians or Jews who study the Bible full time. I cannot provide evidence for my claim, but my gut feeling is that your largely overstate your case through cherrypicking. WP:FRINGE might apply. Or WP:UNDUE. Anyway, what you state (namely that the Book of Daniel would be historically correct) might be the consensus among conservative evangelicals, but not in the secular academia. Oh, yes: many of the works you cite are too old for us. Told you that many times. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:09, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

""Biblical inerrantist" is not synonymous with "Christian"." No, but it typically is synonymous with "fringe source" or "unreliable". Biblical inerrancy has been rejected by just about everyone, including the supporters of Evangelicalism.

Kenneth Kitchen is not a reliable source, due to his biased views. "Kitchen is an evangelical Christian, and has published frequently defending the historicity of the Old Testament. He is an outspoken critic of the documentary hypothesis, publishing various articles and books upholding his viewpoint, arguing from several kinds of evidence for his views showing that the depictions in the Bible of various historical eras and societies are consistent with historical data." The man has even supported the historicity of Solomon, based on zero evidence.

Yechezkel Kutscher died back in 1971. He was an expert on Mishnaic Hebrew.Dimadick (talk) 09:14, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Proveallthings says, Alephb deliberately witheld information contrary to his viewpoint, and managed to overlook at least three others in his 'process'. Well, if they're going to repeat that, let me once again repeat that I'm not a fan of being misrepresented on talk pages.

Nor have I ever once said whether I think "son" is intended in a stricter or looser sense in this passage. What I did was do a quick straw poll of authors to try and figure out which ones are on which side of the debate. That's why I didn't try to quote the arguments of both sides in full. I've explained this enough times that the misrepresentation of what I did really should have stopped quite a while further back in this conversation.

As to what all those translations have in common, no, it's not that they're Christian. The NRSV was largely produced by Christians, and the NAB is the product of a large Christian denomination, and neither of these try to defend the historical accuracy of the word "son". It's not that "Christians" are "deceivers", it's that one subset of Protestants (honestly, and not deceptively) hold to WP:FRINGE views and repeat these in all sorts of translations. The list is irrelevant for Wikipedia purposes.

I find this statement by Proveallthings odd: I don't know of any language scholar that still dates Daniel 5 to the Hellenistic era, much less the second century. Proveallthings doesn't know of a single language scholar who holds to the consensus view on the authorship of Daniel? That's some selective reading right there.

Here's Daniel A. Machiela in Lester L. Grabbe; Gabriele Boccaccini; Jason M. Zurawski, eds. (25 February 2016). The Seleucid and Hasmonean Periods and the Apocalyptic Worldview. Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-567-66615-4., "Most of the Aramaic Scrolls are very difficult to date on literary grounds, but a general consensus has emerged among experts that the earlier Aramaic works, such as parts of 1 Enoch (the Book of Watchers and the Astronomical Book), the court tales of Daniel, the Aramaic Levi Document, Tobit, the Visions of Amram, and perhaps the Book of Giants were composed in the third or early second centuries B.C.E." (The court tales of course include Daniel 5 and the third or early second centuries are Hellenistic). A similar statement about the consensus can be found here: .

And if we're still trying to build an encyclopedia that gives primacy to scholarly consensus, all these repetitions about the linguistic evidence for early Aramaic don't deserve much weight. As even Andrew Hill, who favors Proveallthings' view on "son", says, "There seems to be a growing consensus that Baldwin is correct in her observation that 'the date of Daniel cannot be decided on linguistic grounds.'" Alephb (talk) 23:41, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for response. No intent to misrepresent, I am sorry (Alephb) you feel that way. What if my straw poll omitted Collins, Hammer, and Harrington? What would you say? I will move past; I would rather be friends, besides. Forgive me the trouble. I am aware of ad hoc explanations and holdouts for a Maccabean date. I was referring specifically to philologists who have compared it with the DSS, Aramaic Inscriptions, the Elephantine Papyri, and more recently the bilingual Tell Fekhriyah insciption. I didn't just note Kitchen, either. I noted Rosenthal, Kutscher and Folmer, and can add Waltke, Vasholz, Stefanovic, Wenham, st al. Yes, Dimadick, Kutscher is the reigning standard despite his passing in 1971 (see for example Greenfield, "Dialects of Early Aramaic," Journal of Near Eastern Studies, p. 93). He was an Israeli philologist who wrote very important works on Aramaic as well, he didn't just "specialize" in Mishnaic Hebrew, his work "included" it. Assyriologist Alan Millard of Liverpool University notes, "The style of Aramaic in the book of Daniel is now widely agreed to belong to the Persian period" (Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith? p. 278). Alephb, the "consensus" in your second source cites Montgomery, 1927 in support; Collins follows Montgomery and Rawley, which is as I said, superseded by Rosenthal, Kutscher, Folmer, al. Unfortunately Grabbe et al. don't cite any source, so I can't investigate further but I will try to track it down. J. Baldwin, whom you reference, on pp. 34-39 actually devotes MUCH time upholding authorship during the Persian milieu and notes many modern commentators simply assert 2nd, 3rd BCE dates without reasons, hilighting "the way in which the linguistic argument [i.e., 2nd BCE date] is still being used, even though it has ceased to be so used by most Scholars who specialize in the original languages, Hebrew and Aramaic" and in specific qualification to her statement (which you adduce above), "...on linguistic grounds" is followed by "and that the increasing evidence does not favour a second-century, western origin." (p. 39). No, tgeorgescu, I don't cherry pick. Thank you for your concern. As I have said, superseding information is welcome. Proveallthings (talk) 04:37, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

As stated before "The Book of Daniel used older sources" solves this dilemma: it was written in 2nd century BCE and it used older sources. This should be fairly easy to understand. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:28, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

The statement of consensus by Wright is perfectly clear about when scholars think the book was composed, and it's from 2016. Yes, that statement by Wright does redirect readers to a book from 1927, and a book from 1978, and a book from 1992 -- but the statement itself dates to 2016 and Wright is not the only scholar to recognize the consensus here. There's nothing abnormal about a scholar, speaking now, pointing out to readers that a book written several generations back still has some relevant information in it. On Wikipedia, we try to avoid basing articles on dated scholarship, but there's no embargo on up-to-date scholarship that happens itself to reference older scholarship. We'd be hamstringing ourself if we adopted rules that restrictive.

If there's any hope for this conversation to become productive, we really need to all acknowledge a few baseline facts here. (1) Most of the relevant experts have the Aramaic portions of Daniel between written before the Maccabees but in the Hellenistic period. (2) For the book as a whole, a consensus of the relevant experts have the book of Daniel assuming its final form in the Maccabean period (i.e. that's when the apocalyptic content gets added in). (3) Most commentators see the use of "son" in Daniel 5 as a historical mistake on the part of the author. Proveallthings is perfectly within his rights to think most scholars are wrong on all three questions, but if we can't agree that those are in fact what most scholars think then I think we'd all be wasting our time if we tried to follow the rapid-fire hopping from source to source any further.

I'd ask Proveallthings to indicate, for each of (1), (2), (3), whether they agree that the scholarly community does in fact think this way. This will give us a better understanding of just how deep this wide-ranging set of disagreements is, and maybe give us a way to move forward or else perhaps a way to decide that there's not much point in trying to hammer things out further. Alephb (talk) 16:44, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Thank you. Millard's statement of consensus was from 2012. Consensus was essentially the same in 1993, when John J. Collins wrote, "the current consensus regards the Aramaic of Daniel as an example of Official Aramaic, which Fitzmyer dates from 700 to 200 BCE" (Journal of Biblical Literature, vol. 112, no. 4 (Winter, 1993), p. 771. He noted Fitzmeyer's idiosyncratic date for what reason I know not; Official (Imperial) Aramaic is 700-300 BCE. Consensus has not changed in the last few years, and there has been no landmark study, so I regard the sources you provided as aberrant. I can track the error of the one source to an outdated consensus following Montgomery, which was true for a time. Collin's own correction to this assessment (held in 1984, earlier) was just noted. So that is another red flag. I agree with you (contra editors who put arbitrary expiry dates on works) about older works, but WP:AGE does require editors to be sure its information has not been superseded. Montgomery's philological assessment has been superseded by Rosenthal, Kitchen, Kutscher, Folmer, Stefanovic, Coxon, Waltke, Vasholz. These are the significant studies. All are critical of the 2nd BCE date. Most note its affinity with 6th/5th BCE documents. Stefanovic specifically notes multiple Akkadianisms in Daniel resembling much older inscriptions that only had usage in Assyriological texts. None of them restrict to 330-165 BCE, as Grabbe, et al. I'm trying to retrace any philological argument adhering to a 330-165 BCE date, which most closely resembles the views of G.R. Driver, 1926 and prior, which has also been superseded. Cheers! Proveallthings (talk) 07:10, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

So, you want to redate Daniel to 6th century BCE? That's WP:FRINGE by our book. "In 2012 Crossway published an impressive collection of 21 essays defending the historical reliability of the Bible under the title Do Historical Matters Matter to Faith?" . That's fringe indeed. No one engages in such pursuit if he/she does not have an axe to grind against WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP. You cite evangelical scholars who have an irrational persuasion that the Bible must be historically correct, or else their own faith is in vain. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:32, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

"Most of the relevant experts have the Aramaic portions of Daniel between written before the Maccabees but in the Hellenistic period." That does not particularly help. The Hellenistic period lasted from the 4th to the 1st century BC. And the Parthian Empire (247 BC–224 AD) used Aramaic as its lingua franca. There is some cultural continuity for centuries, following the end of the Achaemenid Empire.

Our own article on the Aramaic language notes that "Imperial Aramaic" did not simply die out in the 4th century BC. "For centuries after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire (in 331 BC), Imperial Aramaic – or near enough for it to be recognisable – would remain an influence on the various native Iranian languages. Aramaic script and – as ideograms – Aramaic vocabulary would survive as the essential characteristics of the Pahlavi scripts." Dimadick (talk) 07:49, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

@Proveallthings: Please answer these questions: do you believe that evangelical scholarship is the only game in town? Or do you have to take into account thumb rules like WP:CHOPSY? Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:54, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

I will admit I'm finding Proveallthings logic hard to follow right now. In particular, the attempts to argue that various 21st-century statements about current consensus are in some way indebted to early and "superseded" arguments strikes me as a very strange attempt to use WP:AGE as a way to do an end-run around very clear statements on up-to-date scholarly consensus. If the statements above (1), (2), and (3) do not accurately reflect recent scholarly consensus, I would ask Proveallthings to cite clear statements in reliable sources about what the current scholarly consensus is, rather than self-selecting a number of studies that Proveallthings prefers and thinks "supersede" them. Because so far in this conversation direct statements have been provided that (1), (2), and (3) do each in fact reflect the scholarly consensus. If we can't get clear statements against claims (1), (2), and (3), then all this listing of individual studies just reflects one particular editor's opinions about which scholars we should follow, which, as we keep saying, isn't how Wikipedia chooses article content. Alephb (talk) 18:54, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Citing Collins (1993), Yale, for consensus was not good enough to pass your own personal WP:CHOPSY test? I said the Maccabean, 2nd century date for the Aramaic portion of Daniel is no longer maintained. Please stick to my actual words. The discussion among philologists has already moved on. I've noted the relevant majority of the philological evaluations in recent times following Montgomery. Imperial Aramaic is 700-300 BCE (Collins, 200 BCE is idiosyncratic of Fitzmyer). Simply using your own personal, "No true Scotsman" definition of what constitutes Academia is not constructive. Sometimes liberal views prevail, other times conservative. But you are attempting to stifle discussion by eliminating all viewpoints from discussion that are not strictly "secular" from particular institutions of your own choosing. I have presented by now more than 20 published sources for both arguments above. I will summarize again: Rosenthal, Kitchen, Kutscher, Folmer, Vasholz, Coxon, Stefanovic, Waltke, Wenham, also of relevance Millard, Baldwin, and Yamauchi. I have also noted in support of the other: Seow, Dougherty, Miller, Millard, Chavalas, Keener & Walton, Harrison, Beaulieu, Harrison, Doukhan, Baldwin. I can add more. Short answer, "no." Contrariwise, please remember that Wikipedia is not an ideological WP:BATTLEGROUND against evangelicals and fundamentalists.

Dimadick, thank you for the input. Citing Wikipedia but not reading the actual philological arguments means you are unknowingly leaving a false impression. The proportion of Akkadian and Old Persian (ended 300 BCE) loan words, and none from Middle Persian or the Hellenistic age (and the nature of said words) is one argument maintained against the later date. Akkadianisms matching the bilingual Tell Fekherye inscription (9th BCE, I believe) that represent forced, official usage not part of spoken vernacular is another point. Affinity with the Elephantine Papyri of the 6th/5th BCE century, and marked differences with the Aramaic of the DSS is a third. So 200 BCE or later is only possible, with multiple concessions needing to be made in order to make it work; it is not probable. Most of the analyses will strongly favor an earlier date without completely ruling out the (albeit improbable) later. Spoken languages do not simply freeze form, they continue to assimilate words from cultures they come in contact with. See, for instance, Kutscher's remarks on Greek loanwords in his article "Words and their History" (Ariel, vol. 25 (1969), pp. 64-74, " Hellenistic culture which inundated Western Asia as a result of the conquest of Alexander the Great left its mark on Hebrew in the large number of Greek borrowings." Qumran, which resisted outside influence, is the exception. Let me say again, dogmatically asserting "2nd BCE Daniel" for Daniel 5 goes far beyond the consensus of modern scholars. Folmer, for instance, notes that Ezra and Daniel share in all the hallmarks of the Aramaic language from the Achaemenid (not Hellenistic) period (c. 550-330 BCE) - The Aramaic Language in the Achaemenid Period, p. 753. Cheers! Proveallthings (talk) 21:05, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

@Proveallthings:. You say now, "I said the Maccabean, 2nd century date for the Aramaic portion of Daniel is no longer maintained. Please stick to my actual words." Okay. Here's your actual words: "I don't know of any language scholar that still dates Daniel 5 to the Hellenistic era, much less the second century." The newer claim you're making is true. The older claim at least appeared to show a serious lack of awareness of the consensus position. Perhaps we can be thankful for that small bit of progress.

Yes, saying that Daniel was entirely written in the 2nd century would go beyond the consensus of modern scholars. Saying that the book was assembled around 165 while containing earlier Aramaic material written in the Hellenistic (330 or later) period, on the other hand, would reflect the current consensus. I don't think anyone here has been arguing that the whole thing was written in its entirety, without the use of earlier sources, in the second century. Alephb (talk) 22:43, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

See Folmer, above. The "Achaemenid period" preceded the Hellenistic period. The latter follows from 330 BCE. You are reversing before 330 BCE to after. Collins, 1995, is of your opinion, to be sure. But the others not so much. To clarify: history relies on what is probable, not what is possible. 3rd BCE or later requires that the Aramaic freeze in place for 100-135 years (assuming 200-165 BCE), undergoing no modification, admit no Greek influence despite the upheaval of Macedonian conquests, as well as receive no effect from forced Hellenization under Antiochus IV. Kutscher, in so many words. Then, over the next 50 years (by 150 BCE), it suddenly morphs into Palestinisn Aramaic, then forks into Galilean Aramaic.

If we are able to accept this, the next hurfle to overcome is why Daniel resembles more closely the style of the 6th/5th BCE Elephantine papyri rather than purportedly contemporary documents. This has also been observed. So, it's possible my next comment will be in the form of Shakespearean English. But since that period came and went, and English has undergone such a modification, it is not probable. It is less probable that I could pull it off well, without making a host of linguistic mistakes, despite a very high degree of knowledge of that period English.

The article states 2nd BCE in relation to Daniel 5. Consensus is Imperial Aramaic, 700-300 BCE. This is misleading. Proveallthings (talk) 06:46, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Let me spell out the WP:RULES: editors don't get to decide which view would be the majority view, instead editors follow WP:RS/AC. You either fulfill this requirement or beat it. Even then, a consensus among evangelical scholars won't do. Not because of an ideological fight against them, but because they are either a scholarly minority or WP:FRINGE. What does Millard says at the first footnote at ? He says: these are the best commentaries on Daniel, which I beg to disagree with and now let me list the scholars who agree with my minority opinion. What does say? "This timely collection of scholarly essays equips Christians to defend the key doctrine of inerrancy against the skeptical attitudes of culture and the academy toward the Bible’s historical claims." By our book biblical inerrancy is WP:FRINGE/PS. Note the PS as in pseudohistory.

Robert Todd Carroll has developed a list of criteria to identify pseudo-historic works. He states that:

"Pseudohistory is purported history which:

• Treats myths, legends, sagas and similar literature as literal truth

Millard is quite transparent in his wish to affirm biblical inerrancy, which makes his paper suspect as a WP:RS. He knows full well that from Ivy Plus to US state universities inerrantism is regarded as the stigma of cranks and kooks. Tgeorgescu (talk) 11:41, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

Consequently, anything Millard writes or claims is unreliable. Again, we need secular sources, not religious pseudohistorians. We should not rely on "reliable" sources like William F. Albright and his ilk.: "In the years since his death, Albright's methods and conclusions have been increasingly questioned. William Dever claims that "[Albright's] central theses have all been overturned, partly by further advances in Biblical criticism, but mostly by the continuing archaeological research of younger Americans and Israelis to whom he himself gave encouragement and momentum ... The irony is that, in the long run, it will have been the newer 'secular' archaeology that contributed the most to Biblical studies, not 'Biblical archaeology.'" "Dimadick (talk) 07:22, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Yes, when one defends inerrantism a straightforward conclusion is that he/she is unable to critically evaluate his/her sources, which, according to historical method, defaults to pseudohistory. Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:24, 6 September 2018 (UTC)

This edit request to Belshazzar has been answered. Set the |answered= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

The article states that the account in the Book of Daniel is fictional, evidently citing some work by a certain Mr.Collins. There is no proof or evidence of the stated fictitiousness of said account, and thereby this article presents conjecture as fact, thus misleading the reader. I suggest it be changed to ", supposed by xxx to be fictitious," or the reference to it being fictitious to be removed altogether. Saldas elfstone (talk) 01:49, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

Nope.

I would like to chime in here that the reason we know the Book of Daniel was written in the second century BC is because the prophecies in it are only accurate up until a certain date: 164 BC exactly. After that date, all of the prophecies are catastrophically wrong. The only way that you can arrive with a work containing accurate prophecies up to one, specific date and inaccurate prophecies thereafter is if the book was actually written at that date, making all the "predictions" prior to that point actually be history framed as predictions to make the actual predictions found later seem reliable. --Katolophyromai (talk) 15:41, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Yes, this is the scholarly consensus and it has been the scholarly consensus for over a century now. The Book of Daniel is, in fact, regarded as probably the single book in Old Testament that is most obviously a forgery above all others, due to its anachronistic language, historical errors, inconsistencies, or other details.

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 01:59, 25 August 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Saldas elfstone. The "fictional tale" statement clearly violates WP:NPOV, specifically "avoid stating opinions as facts". While Collins believes Daniel is fictional, Daniel is not fictional because Collins says it is. In addition, I note Tgeorgescu has reverted back to "fictional tale" at least 20 times (!), despite numerous attempts by other editors to make the statement more neutral in tone. The article is on Belshazzar, it is not a text-critical commentary in the book of Daniel. Proveallthings (talk) 07:38, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

See WP:YESPOV, WP:RS/AC, WP:FRINGE and WP:RGW. Tgeorgescu (talk) 07:43, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Irrelevant. The Book of Daniel is a work of historical fiction, and Daniel never existed. He is as much a fictional character as Moses and Aaron. Dimadick (talk) 07:51, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Proveallthings has proven that evangelical scholars dissent from mainstream history. But we already knew that Biblical inerrantists dissent from Biblical errancy. Tgeorgescu (talk) 09:07, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Are they sincere in their beliefs? I am approaching middle-age, and the only Biblical inerrantists I have personally met are cynical, professional Christian priests, and a few mental patients at the local hospital. My first instinct whenever I hear someone express such beliefs is to assume a) he/she never read the Bible (most of the pious people I have met, have never opened any of the books in the collection) b) he/she is lying and trying to mislead the gullible. (I attended Sunday school as a child, and quickly noticed that several of the priest's teachings were actually contradicting one or more Biblical texts. Dimadick (talk) 10:00, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Comment. I changed a couple of "fictional" to "biblical" without checking the talkpage first. IMO it's preferable per how we usually write about religious texts on WP. There's absolutely nothing wrong with including what sources say about historical/factual aspects, but BoD is primarily a religious text, not a work of history. Anyway, I don't intend to edit-war about it. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 09:27, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

I see "historical fiction" is back in the lead. Per the WP-link it fits really bad: "Historical fiction is a literary genre in which the plot takes place in a setting located in the past. Although the term is commonly used as a synonym for the historical novel, it can also be applied to other types of narrative, including theatre, opera, cinema and television, as well as video games and graphic novels." Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 15:10, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

How does it fit bad? It is a 2nd-century BC work, set in the 6th-century BC. Dimadick (talk) 21:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)

Lack of WP:RS that refers to BoD as HF? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 10:24, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:RS broadly concur that it isn't history; upon what it is there is less consensus. Tgeorgescu (talk) 21:43, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Biblical must have some support? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 22:25, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

WP:BLUE, however we have somehow to convey that this is one of the most fake books of the Bible. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:50, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

You may have a point, I'm quite ignorant on that aspect. I'm comparing to stuff like David#Biblical_account and The_Exodus#Summary, where we recount the biblical story in one section, and then get on with other stuff. But there is no law that this article should do it exactly like that, for one thing IMO the "history" element here is a bit stronger. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:36, 11 September 2018 (UTC)

Some "biblical" texts are considered relatively reliable in historicity. The Books of Kings is heavily biased, but depicts several people and events which are known through the archaeological record. This is mostly not the case with the Book of Daniel. Dimadick (talk) 07:27, 5 September 2018 (UTC)