God exists

GodI never argued that the Bible was inconsistent (although that is easily done), only that consistency is insufficient to depict the Bible in its entirety. Remember, there are major claims about God that are not depicted in Daniel, for example the Triune nature of God, as in the Holy Spirit and the Son. Moreover Daniel makes no reference to God’s power, nor his agency as the creator of the universe. At best Pro can only demonstrate that something with foresight that would be labelled a “God” was responsible with what we observe in the Book of Daniel.Dating of Book of DanielI will spend the rest of this round discussing this and tie up other loose ends next round so that Pro may respond to the most important points in his closing. My arguments for other naturalistic explanations are entirely an “even if” case. Even if Pro demonstrated real prophecies then he still fails.Indeed, as I have iterated throughout this debate. Pro’s entire case fails if he cannot demonstrate an early authorship of the Book of Daniel with good confidence.EzekielEzekiel’s reference to a Daniel =/= evidence that the Book of Daniel had an early authorship. There is a difference between an early authorship of a book and the early existence of a human. Last month I watched the film “Abraham”, with President Abraham depicted as a vampire slayer. Clearly we can demonstrate we good confidence that a president named Abraham existed via various meant, but this in no way demonstrates this film was created in the 1700s! (P.S. that film was awesome). Pro is using exactly the same reasoning with his Ezekiel reference.Lord of Heaven“Daniel 2:18 uses the title for God “Lord of Heaven.” This would have been offensive to Maccabean Jews, who associated that title with Zeus, who's image Antiochus Epiphanies set up in the Temple.”First, this is terrible evidence even if true. Offensive things get published all the time, while they may be published less frequently, they still exist. I only need to go as far as Prophet Muhammad satire that exists today to demonstrate that much.Furthermore, one is not committed to the notion that the Book of Daniel was composed by one person, or in one work. Current scholarly consensus is that the Book of Daniel probably had several authors. A big point to note is that Daniel chapters 2-7 are written in Aramaic, and Chapters 1, 8-14 are written in Hebrew. The portion that contains the “offending sentence” is written in a different language to where the prophetic statements are made, which by itself is strong evidence of an independent authorship of that verse. Thus the “offence” argument wouldn’t apply to that part.[http://en.wikipedia.org...Lastly, Maccebean Jews don’t recognise Zeus as “Lord of Heaven”, and the image was described as “abomination that makes desolate”, which is a portrayal of Antiochus as blasphemous, thus it is the hijacking of the title that Jews would have found offensive, rather than the title itself.Belshazzar“Belshazzar, final king of Babylon, was lost to history until 1854. The author of Daniel would have had to have been there, or a near contemporary to have known of his existence.”To understand Pro’s argument one needs to fill out the missing assumption:1. ???2. Belshazzar was lost to history until recent timesC. Therefore the author of Daniel would have had to be near-contemporaryPro’s argument mandates a leap of logic to tie the observation to the conclusion. I have no idea what that leap in logic is, as I see no relation between its current-day knowledge and knowledge at the time after Belshazzar. 2,300 years is much longer than 300. Also Belshazzar was known to other people such as Xenophon in works that date to (died 355 BC).[http://tinyurl.com...] The very fact that Belshazzar was not well-known, despite being allegedly the last ruling king when Babylon was conquered is excellent evidence against Belshazzar ever being a king.Furthermore, again one is not committed to the notion that Daniel was singularly authored, indeed scholarly consensus is that the Book of Daniel originated from Aramaic folktales (Ch 2-7) that were extended by Hebrew revelations (Ch 1, 8-12). Thus the Arameic chapters would have had earlier roots anyway. Moreover there is a drastic change in style from chapters 1-6 to 7-12, as the latter was written in a strictly prophetic style, while the former regards dreams and allegories, which together with the language gap is strong evidence of multiple authorship.Ironically the Book of Daniel’s references to Belshazzar amply demonstrate the author(s)’s unfamiliarity with Babylonion history. The cylinder and other sources describe Belshazzar as son of King Nabonidus, yet the evidence that Belshazzar was ever a king is lacking. Book of Daniel actually claims Belshazzar is Son of King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 5:18). King Nabonidus is not even related to King Nebuchadnezzar!More interestingly, Nabonidus is not even mentioned in the Book of Daniel which would be expected IF it really was written contemporary since it was Nabonidus, not Belshazzar that was the last King of Babylon before Cryus of Persia conquered it.Darius the Great is mentioned as conquering Babylon in (Daniel 5:31) yet we know that Cyrus the Great was actually the emperor that conquered Babylon. If the author(s) were truly contemporary then it would be impossible to get these mixed up given that these were extremely well-known emperors at the time.Detail of Book of DanielPro again only makes an intuitive argument here. That the level of detail can only be expected of something contemporary, again what is Pro’s evidential support for this claim? Furthermore, only could run an identically parallel argument for the Antiochus Epiphanes portion and state the detail within chapter 10-11 mandates a contemporaneous composition. The author clearly has his facts straight regarding the events of the 2nd century.Moreover, again one is not committed to singular authorship of the book. Thus origins from folktales of the Aramaic portion would go a long way to explaining some of Pro’s observations.Summary of Pro’s Positive CaseThat’s it. That’s Pro’s entire care. Five reasons why we should believe that the Book of Daniel really was authored early. Quite frankly, I am unimpressed. Even if we assume that all of Pro’s points were in fact valid, and do in fact increase the likelihood of an early authorship. Does it sufficiently meet the burden of proof to overturn the low prior probability of a real prophecy? Almost certainly not.Like I mentioned in the previous rounds, having hard evidence of early composition WOULD have made an excellent case for early authorship (early manuscripts for example, dated with radiocarbon or by palaeography – the study of ancient handwriting), Pro has spectacularly failed to provide these and is left resorting to conjectural arguments with dubious presuppositions that don’t even make for a strong inductive case by themselves.