God exists

Babylonion & Persian history is quite fascinating, not to mention textual criticism. I will again spend most of my time on the dating of the Book of Daniel. Although this debate is regarding God’s existence, the actual fulfilment of prophecies is certainly going to be more interesting anyway. Date of Book of DanielUniformity of Book of DanielPro concedes at the very least that the Book of Daniel was not intended to be uniform, it would be very strange to have a book half-written in French, and Half in English, with a French First Chapter, a Chunk of English, followed by a chunk of French, moreover when there is a divide halfway through that changes the genre from science drama to science fantasy, it’s pretty clear some mish-mash has occurred. Pro gives an apologetic argument for how it’s *possible* for it to be uniform, but this is essentially squaring the circle. The very fact it’s written in different languages, and has a massive break in writing style (which doesn’t even align with the language shift) between chapters 6 and 7 is black and white evidence in favour of multiple authorship. It’s not proof of multiple authorship, but it certainly renders that explanation much more plausible. When making an inference to the best explanation, evidence against a hypothesis is weighted, from an unbiased, objective analysis of the text, the hypothesis that it had multiple authors when one considers those two facts immediately becomes more plausible than it would have been if it was written in a uniform style and in one language. Thus, if we have good reason to believe that the Book of Daniel was not authored in one uniform composition, then a lot of Pro’s arguments for an early dating become irrelevant or dubious. Book of Daniel’s Author’s Familiarity with HistoryI have a feeling that Pro has his facts confused. To make things explicit I have provided a table of my case against the author’s familiarity of Babylon times: I will address the rebuttals catgorically1. Son of NebuchadnezzarPro appeals to possibility, and gives a very unusual interpretation of “son” in this instance, which makes absolutely no sense since:1. Belshazzar is not even related to Nebuchenessar, thus he could not have been a successor at the time Nebuchadnezzar ruled.2. There were three rulers that rules between Nebuchenessar and Nabonidis (Amel-Marduk (Son of Nebuchedessar), Neriglissar (Son in Law), Labashi-Marduk (Son of Neriglissar), there was simply no way Belshazzar was regarded as a Successor during Nebuchadnezzar’s reign. [. http://www.jwfacts.com...] This debate isn’t about what is possible, but what is probable. Just going through Daniel 5 turns up a plethora of references to Nebuchenessar as Belshassar’s father:Daniel 5:2“While he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple which had been in Jerusalem, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them. ”Daniel 5:11“There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God. And in the days of your father, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, were found in him; and King Nebuchadnezzar your father—your father the king—made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers. ”Daniel 5:18“O king, the Most High God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. ”Daniel 5:13“Then Daniel was brought in before the king. The king spoke, and said to Daniel, “Are you that Daniel who is one of the captives from Judah, whom my father the king brought from Judah? If the author of Daniel was really contemporaneous, then there would have been no way to get this confused. It’s pretty black and white from an objective reading of the text that the author thought Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Belshazzar the King Pro provides no evidence that Nabonidis was an absentee, nor any evidence that this was a regular occurrence. Moreover, there is no evidence that suggest that Nabonidis was ever absent when Babylon fell to Persia. Moreover, Con attempts to disregard my argument that Nabonidis was never mentioned, but ignores that IF the author really had contemporaneous knowledge, then we would definitely expect Nabonidis mentioned if Nebuchadnezzar is mentioned, since Nabonidus was the reigning king at the time. An objective analysis of the evidence concludes that the author lacks knowledge of Nabonidis, with both the faulty genetic lineages and complete absence of any mention to Nabonidis. The fact that the author positively affirms false conjecture (Belshazzar the Son & King) based on his mistaken knowledge (of Nabonidus) is very strong evidence that the author didn’t know what he was talking about. A comparibly strong hypothesis can be forwarded that the author probably thought Nabonidis was Nebuchadnezzar, or Belshassar. Darius The Mede“Daniel does not say Darius the Great captured Babylon. ”I beg to differ:Daniel 5:30-31 “That very night Belshazzar, king of the Chaldeans, was slain. 31 And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about sixty-two years old. ”There is no break in the text, the author clearly intended these verses to be directly related. Pro’s Positive CasePro didn’t address my rebuttals to his five points in favour of an early dating, so I will stand on what I have said so far, and extend my previous comment, that Pro’s case for an early dating is unimpressive. Summary of DatingBecause of the author(s) of Daniel’s lucid knowledge of 2nd century history, and dubious knowledge of 6th century history, as well as the lack of any hard evidence for earlier manuscripts/mentions, then an objective conclusion is that the Book of Daniel was clearly not written in the 6th century. Philosophical PointsLow a priori probability of real prophecyPro didn’t deny that genuine prophecies are a rare even if they are true and exist, thus from both our positions, if we take a random prophecy, then we have a lot chance of it being genuine given perfect knowledge. Thus, Pro has a large burden to climb in this debate to affirm a genuine real prophecy. Pro attempts to vindicate the Bible but this is a black and white case of special pleading, all claims are assessed independently. Yes, large extinction events don’t happen today, although they have happened in the past. But again, because they are so rare, then any claim for a specific extinction event (say, one that happened in 50,000 BC) has a very low chance a priori of being correct. SummaryI wish I had more space, but I will let my case stand.