Will You Follow the Truth?
Whenever I discuss the Book of Daniel in private, I am often asked how its Hebrew-language visions remained wrongly decoded for more than twenty centuries. Some even pose the question as decisive proof that the evidence for its true meaning is mistaken. The persistent error seems so inconceivable that some consider it impossible.
Yet this remarkable persistence has an almost trivial explanation in simple human nature.
That the Hebrew visions at Daniel 8–12 reference historical events is undeniable. The first Hebrew vision begins with a recognizable image of Alexander and his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire (Dan 8:5–8). In its second act, it depicts the destruction of the Second Temple by a later Western “king” (Dan 8:9–12). And in this final act, it offers a historical criterion to identify this “king” (understood to symbolize an empire). This empire somehow emerges from the first (not one) of the four successors that follow Alexander (Dan 8:9). Here there is already enough detail (for anyone living after Actium) to identify this horn as the Roman Empire, yet nothing like these details exists in Daniel 7.
And these historical references in the first vision are only a beginning. The second vision at Daniel 9 presents a testable chronology for this destruction with a precision unseen in any other biblical prophecy (Daniel 9:24–27). Perhaps in any other human prophecy. Even more remarkable is the historical discourse at Daniel 11:2–45, which is sufficiently detailed that historians use it as a primary source for the Hellenistic period.
Yet many first-time readers may not recognize this content at all, and understandably so. The authors of Daniel 8–12 embedded these visions of actual history within the narrative world of Daniel 2–6. A reader, then, with no previous knowledge of the relevant history, may struggle to discern this historical content from the fictionalized history of its framing narrative.
And this framing narrative is evident fiction. It is not a historical narrative. The Aramaic court tales at Daniel 2–6 may incorporate historical empires, historical people, and historical places into their combined narrative, but they nonetheless fictionalize these historical elements. Those who defend the historicity of the narrative either do not know the evidence or they cannot reason about it clearly. Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar, and he was never king of Babylon. The Medes never conquered Babylon, and the character “Darius the Mede” never existed. He is entirely fictional.
Even the one Hebrew-language court tale at Daniel 1 fails to narrate actual history. It, too, is fiction. This tale opens in the “third year of Jehoiakim,” a locatable date in history, with Nebuchadnezzar besieging Jerusalem (Dan 1:1). Yet in the third year of Jehoiakim, Egypt controlled the entire territory from the Sinai to the Euphrates. The Babylonian siege described at Daniel 1:1 is strictly impossible.
And the evident falsehood of these accounts is not a modern development. Even an ancient scholar, with sufficient diligence, could have refuted their historicity. The Handy Tables of Ptolemy included an accurate canon of Neo-Babylonian and Achaemenid Persian kings, and this canon predates the Tables themselves. Its mere existence shows that an accurate canon of these kings has existed since ancient times; that this canon held the confidence of astronomical science for centuries; and that the full canon could be referenced from a single source no later than the second century CE. An ancient or medieval scholar could know that Belshazzar was never king of Babylon, that a “Darius the Mede” never ruled the city, and that the Persian king Cyrus was its actual conqueror.
Some errors are even evident from the Bible itself. The Book of Jeremiah dates the decisive battle of Carchemish to the fourth year of Jehoiakim, making a Babylonian siege in his third year impossible (Jer 46:2). The Book of Kings likewise records that Jehoiakim reigned for eleven years, with his reign ending either during or shortly before the first Babylonian siege of the city (2 Kings 23:36; 24:6, 8–12). And he only served Nebuchadnezzar for three years before he rebelled (2 Kgs 24:1). This notice implies he submitted to Babylon in his eighth year, just as Josephus reports (Josephus, Ant. 10.87–88). The Book of Kings also correctly identifies Nebuchadnezzar’s successor as Amel-Marduk (Evil-merodach), not Belshazzar (2 Kgs 25:27).
Modern archaeological and astronomical research did not establish the historical deviations in the narrative of Daniel. They only made them impossible to ignore.
In fact, it is entirely possible—if not probable—that the earliest audiences of the book’s Aramaic court tales did not receive them as actual history. The Aramaic material at Daniel 2:4b–7:28 presents no true chronological information, and for an early audience its historical errors would have been obvious enough to signal historical fiction. (Its only date is “the first year of Belshazzar, king of Babylon,” which is historically meaningless.)
The literary character of the Aramaic apocalypse at Daniel 7 also signals fiction, not a real prophecy. Almost every specific feature in this apocalypse has either a symbolic or literary explanation. The chaotic sea as the opponent of heaven is a symbol also found in ancient Ugaritic literature, and the schematic history of four Gentile empires plus a kingdom of God employs a motif also attested in the Works and Days of Hesiod. The first three beasts appear in alphabetical order—lion (אריה), bear (דב), and leopard (נמר), and this fact emphasizes their succession. Their key features also have a parallel numerical succession. The lion has two wings (like an eagle), the bear has three ribs in its mouth, and the leopard has four heads and four wings. The duplication evident in the leopard’s features is also symbolic. It echoes a double-eagle motif found in ancient Persian art: The leopard effectively appears as a doubled double-eagle.
Literary symbolism also explains the fourth beast and its many features. It begins with ten horns, a round number. The loss of three leaves seven, while the emergence of the little horn generates a seven-plus-one schema common in Semitic and Ugaritic literature. The prophet Micah uses the same schema in a messianic context, and its use in Daniel 7 suggests an inversion that depicts the little horn as an antichrist (Mic 5:5). As for the “time, two times, and half a time,” it is half of a symbolic seven-year period, and its expression in binary provides a cadence and rhetorical force that a mere “three and a half” does not.
Why, then, did anyone ever try to read the Aramaic material at Daniel 2–7 as actual history or prophecy? Historical readings of the Aramaic core are not late phenomena, and Josephus offers a striking ancient example (Josephus, Ant. 10.231–263).
The answer rests in the Hebrew additions to the Aramaic material. The three additions are the court tale at Daniel 1:1–21, the altered opening to the first Aramaic court tale at Daniel 2:1–4a, and the three Hebrew visions at Daniel 8–12. The tale at Daniel 1 immediately historicizes the book with a locatable date referencing a historical king: “the third year of Jehoiakim” (Dan 1:1). The Hebrew-language modification to Daniel 2 likewise historicizes the first Aramaic court tale with “the second year of Nebuchadnezzar” (Dan 2:1). The final Hebrew vision then closes the book with yet another locatable date: “the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia” (Dan 10:1). Combined with the evident historical content discussed above, the temptation to read the entire Book of Daniel as a historical work is clear.
Yet how serious scholars fell for this temptation is perplexing. For over twenty centuries, only a few modern scholars have noticed that all of the historicizing material is written in Hebrew, outside the book’s Aramaic core. (See, as an example, James E. Miller, “The Redaction of Daniel,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 52 [1991]: 115–24).
This problem becomes even more perplexing when one considers the obvious literary independence of the Aramaic and Hebrew material. You could remove almost all the Hebrew material (save the fragment at Daniel 2:1–4a) and the Aramaic core would stand alone as a complete work. Its five tales and one vision are also arranged into a thematic chiasm, a literary structure in which the Hebrew material does not participate. The prophecy in Daniel 2 parallels the vision at Daniel 7, the miracle at Daniel 3 parallels the miracle at Daniel 6, and the divine judgment at Daniel 4 parallels the judgment at Daniel 5.
This correlation between language, structure, and historicizing effect makes the literary independence of the Aramaic and Hebrew material clear to any reader. Why, then, did serious people read them for centuries as a single book of actual history and prophecy?
Here is where piety enters the explanation. Belief in the divine origin of Daniel cannot accommodate this redactional history. Absent undeniable evidence to the contrary, a belief in the divine origin of Daniel is ultimately a belief in its transmission through a historical Daniel. Admitting the late addition of the Hebrew material is tantamount to rejecting its divine authority. Even admitting that the narrative of Daniel 2–6 is fictional has the same implication.
And this point is significant in the reception history of Daniel. It implies that the book obtained recognition as a divine text after the addition of the Hebrew material, not before. Something about the Hebrew material motivated the book’s adoption as Jewish, and then Christian, sacred text. And that something was probably the perceived success of its prophecies, which provided an effective defense of divine providence against Hellenistic philosophy (Josephus, Ant. 10.267–268, 277–280).
The decisive consequence, however, was interpretative. Since the literary unity of Daniel is essential to its perceived divinity, true believers did what true believers always do: They harmonized the text. They adopted the book’s narrative as history, ignored the absence of God in Daniel 8–12, and read the triumphant theophany of Daniel 7 into the deferred promises of Daniel 8:14 and Daniel 12:11–12. The parody and irony otherwise evident throughout the Hebrew visions were faithwashed. Even the relevant history beyond Daniel was faithwashed, as the court tales became for many believers primary historical sources.
Yet fault for these errors does not lie entirely with believers. The authors of the Hebrew visions intentionally deceived them. Whatever created the Hebrew visions plainly understood that a direct argument against religion would accomplish nothing. Believers would simply suppress it, leaving later generations with nothing to ponder. They therefore devised a far more compelling demonstration that religious belief was indeed stupid.
The solution was integration with a pious work. They intentionally embedded the critical antireligious content of Daniel 8–12 within the pious framework of the Aramaic narrative, so that believers themselves would preserve, defend, and even venerate a work that quietly mocked them. The evident prophetic success of the Hebrew visions ensured their preservation, while the very faith they ridiculed shielded their mockery from being recognized. For more than twenty centuries, believers unwittingly preserved, and even celebrated, the evidence of their own intellectual failure.
And the deception has proven remarkably resilient.
Because most humans classify arguments before they reason about them—if they reason about them at all. If you are a theist, ask yourself: can you, with almost no thought, express the conditions under which you would adopt atheism? If you are instead an atheist, can you, with almost no thought, express the conditions under which you would adopt theism? Most likely, you cannot. And the reason is simple: whether you reasoned them out or not, these beliefs function as principles of classification tied to personal identity, not rational conclusions open to refutation.
And that is why the true meaning of the Hebrew visions has gone unrecognized for centuries, and continues to go widely unrecognized. It is not compatible with most people’s chosen identities. The religious will not reason about it because they classify it as heresy, while secularists will not engage it, because they classify it as apologetics. Some even see in it fundamentalism.
This power of personal identity over human reasoning extends even to institutional scholarship. At least four recognized scholars have considered the thesis this blog addresses. Three rejected it strictly on the basis of classification without detailed review. One (who actually reviewed the chronological analysis of Daniel 9:24–27) enthusiastically accepted it—until they learned that the radiocarbon date ranges for 4Q114 did not permit a first-century composition for Daniel. Yet this scholar never explained how those date ranges refuted the otherwise evident meaning of Daniel 9. Though I cannot be certain, the thesis of fulfilled prophecy alone seems sufficient to threaten the social standing of these scholars within institutional scholarship, even when it undermines belief in divine salvation. And this social threat seems great enough that they will not follow the truth where it leads.
The question is whether you will.
