(dramatic orchestral music) ♪ Ah ♪ Ah ♪ Ah ♪ Ah >>Hi. Welcome to
"Digging for Truth." I'm your host, Henry Smith, where we explore the reliability and authenticity of the Bible. Today, a friendly face
is back on the show. Bryan Windle, he's here,
he's with the ABR staff, and with us today to talk
about the Book of Daniel, one of the most
interesting, fascinating and important books found
in the Old Testament. Well, Bryan, welcome back to
"Digging for Truth," my friend. >>Hey! (laughs) Thanks so much, Henry. Great to join you again. Love doing these top
10 lists with you. >>Yeah, that's right. We're doing the Daniel
top 10 countdown. (dramatic music) And I'm really excited
to do this one with you. I guess we could say about just about any
topic of the Bible, there's controversy
surrounding X, Y, or Z, what we might say
about the Bible. But Daniel has its own
particular controversies. Maybe you could give
an intro to that and we could jump
into our top 10 list. >>Sure. Well, you're right. Daniel is one of the most hotly
contested books of the Bible and it purports to describe
events in the sixth century BC, of Israel and the
exiles and Babylon, and it's traditionally been attributed to
Daniel the Prophet. But since the 19th century, scholars have doubted
its historicity. They've doubted Daniel wrote it. They say, "No, no, no. It was probably written by
someone in the second century BC and that it was written to
encourage the Jewish people who were being persecuted
under Antiochus Epiphanes and in about the 160s. But recent linguistical studies studying the language
of the Book of Daniel have pointed out that the Hebrew that's used in the
Book of Daniel, for example, is earlier Hebrew. It predates the
Hebrew that we find in the second century BC Dead
Sea Scrolls, for example. And another study has
looked at the Aramaic that's used in the
Book of Daniel, and discovered that
it is Imperial Aramaic and that it is
Imperial Aramaic from the period of about
600 to 330 BC, not the Imperial
Aramaic of a later time, particularly during
the second century BC. Moreover, I think that
there is good reason based on the archeological
evidence as well, to believe that
the Bible is that this book was written by Daniel and that it does
accurately describe the events of the
sixth century BC. >>That's good. That's a
good intro, Bryan, you know? You know, no matter. There's different
interpretations of
Daniel's visions of the future about
future kingdoms, and we're not gonna
get into that. Our intention is not
to get into that today. But the point of that is that it does point to future kingdoms that are later than
the sixth century and, therefore, it has
this prophetic dimension. And the implications
are of course about the ability to see the future, and only God could
reveal it to him. So those broad principles
are in play apologetically. And so the evidence points
to what you're saying, a sixth century origin
and not a later origin. So let's start jumping
into the archeology, Bryan. You already covered the
linguistic stuff just briefly. Let's begin with number 10. >>All right. Number 10 is
the Nebuchadnezzar Stele. The Book of Daniel
begins with these words: In the third year of the reign
of Jehoiakim, King of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, the
King of Babylon, came to Jerusalem
and besieged it. Of course, Nebuchadnezzar was the king
who reigned over Babylon for over 40 years in
the sixth century BC. He was known as a conqueror. The Bible describes him as
the destroyer of nations in Jeremiah 4:7. And he greatly expanded
the Neo-Babylonian empire, and he attacked Jerusalem
on at least three occasions. In 605 BC when Daniel was
taken as captive to Babylon, again in 597 BC when the
Prophet Ezekiel was deported, and finally when it was
destroyed in 587, 586, depending on which
year you land on, when the city was
finally destroyed. There are only four images
known of King Nebuchadnezzar. Most of them are in a poor
state on the side of a cliff. But this one image from
the Nebuchadnezzar Stele gives us a good idea of the
Nebuchadnezzar that Daniel knew. It shows a picture
of him standing. He's bearded, he's
dressed in his royal robe, he's wearing a conical crown, he's holding a long staff, he's standing before a ziggurat. Some people have
mistakenly called this the Tower of Babel Stele. It has nothing to do
with the Tower of Babel. That is the inscription
goes on to say that that's him standing
in front of a tower that's dedicated to the
Babylonian god Marduk. And so this was the number 10
discovery related to Daniel. I'll just keep going. Number nine. Number nine is the
Nebo-Sarsekim Tablet. This is a really
interesting one. When Daniel and his friends were taken to the royal
courts in Babylon, they were given reeducation, they were placed in
the care of Ashphanez, the Chief Official. And the root word, Hebrew
word there is the word saris, which often refers to a eunuch. So Ashphanez was
the Chief Eunuch. And in 2007, an Assyriologist
who was translating a cuneiform tablet
from the British Museum found that it
contained a reference to the Babylonian
Rab-Saris, Chief Eunuch, named Nebo-Sarsekim, who had paid a large sum of
money to a temple in Babylon. And it's important because
references to chief eunuchs are very rare in
ancient inscriptions, and here we have one. It's also important for a
number of other reasons. First of all, Jeremiah 39:3, we see this same
man, Nebo-Sarsekim, who is the Chief Eunuch who
was serving Nebuchadnezzar during the Fall of
Babylon in 587 BC. And it caused the Director of the
Department of the Middle East of the British
Museum to exclaim, "This is a fantastic
discovery! A world class find. If Nebo-Sarsekim existed, which other lesser figures
in the Old Testament existed? A throwaway detail
in the Old Testament turns out to be
accurate and true." Of course, those of us who have
a high regard for scripture that's not surprising
in the least. But the Nebo-Sarsekim
Tablet is important because not only does it mention the
person who Jeremiah mentions, it affirms this
title, Chief Eunuch, which is used in Daniel 1:3. And so, Daniel
actually likely knew at least two chief
eunuchs in Babylon. Ashphanez, who
oversaw his training, and Nebo-Sarsekim who held the
role a decade or two later. >>That's excellent. Again, a throwaway
detail that puts Daniel and Jeremiah in particular
in a historical context. How could they possibly know
of this person centuries later? Okay, so I'd like to explore
that further, but we can't. We gotta move to number eight. So I'm gonna give you, I'll
give you about 45 seconds to introduce it and we'll finish
on the other side. Number eight, please. >>All right, number eight
is Nebuchadnezzar's Palace. In Daniel 4:4, King
Nebuchadnezzar says, "I, Nebuchadnezzar, was
at ease in my house, and prospering in my palace." He was a great builder and one of his grand
achievements was of
course his palace. A palace Daniel was
no doubt familiar with being in the courts of
the King of Babylon. And in one of his inscriptions, Nebuchadnezzar describes how
he rebuilt his father's palace in greater grandeur, using
mighty cedars for the roof, doors of cedar
overlaid with copper, thresholds, sockets of bronze,
precious stones throughout. And so we'll talk
after the break about the discovery of
Nebuchadnezzar's Palace. >>Excellent. Thank you for joining us
for "Digging for Truth." Friends, we're talking about the top 10 discoveries
related to Daniel with my friend and
colleague, Bryan Windle. We'll be right back. >>In a culture of intense Bible denying skepticism, Associates for Biblical Research exists to strengthen
followers of Jesus by affirming the
authority of the Bible. Our archeological fieldwork
and original research form a strong foundation in upholding the reliability
of the scriptures. For students, or anyone asking if they
can really trust the Bible, please visit our website and partner with us by
joining our prayer team, or financially
supporting this ministry. And thank you for
standing with us. >>Hi. Welcome back to
"Digging for Truth." We're doing the top 10
countdown of discoveries related to the Book of Daniel. All right, Bryan, let's pick back up with the
Nebuchadnezzar's Palace. >>Nebuchadnezzar's Palace
was the number eight find. It was actually excavated beginning in 1899
by Robert Koldewey. He led excavations there
at Babylon for 18 years and he uncovered significant
parts of the city, including
Nebuchadnezzar's Palace. The main Southern Palace
was trapezoidal in shape and constructed around
large courtyards. Now here's the sad part. The sad part is that in 1987, Saddam Hussein ordered
the palace to be rebuilt with little regard
for archeological past that he was erasing. And it's been dubbed,
"Disney for a Despot." And so what you can actually
see from Google Earth, which matches the drawing that Robert Koldewey did
when he excavated it, the site you can see
from Google Earth is actually Nebuchadnezzar's
reconstructed palace that Saddam Hussein
reconstructed there. So that was number eight. >>All right, now number seven,
the Temple of Marduk, Bryan. >>All right, Temple of Marduk. There were two
primary structures that dominated the landscape
of Ancient Babylon. One was the main temple to
the Babylonian god Marduk, and the other was
the great ziggurat, which stood seven layers high and contained a shrine
to Marduk at the top. And they were located
next to each other, just past
Nebuchadnezzar's Palace along the Grand Processional. And Daniel records
that Nebuchadnezzar, when he took vessels from
the Temple of Jerusalem, placed them in the
treasury of his god. Now, of the two structures, I believe that it was likely
in the Temple of Marduk that he actually placed
these captured vessels from the Temple. It was a massive complex, lots of rooms, two
massive courtyards. It had a holy of holies where
this statue of Marduk resided. And I think it's more
reasonable to assume that it was placed in there than it
was taking it up to the top, all the stuff up to the
top of the ziggurat, where there was a relatively
small shrine there. And if this is the case, now, both of them, that
basically what remains are just the foundations
of both of these today. But if this is the
case, you wonder, how many times did Daniel
walk that processional way? Walk past the Temple of Marduk and look longingly, knowing
that the vessels from the Temple were inside that structure? >>Yeah, it must have
been heartbreaking
for him to see that. Now archeology is
slow and plodding when we're in the field, but top 10 lists are not, Bryan. So let's keep going.
(Bryan laughs) What's number six? >>Number six is the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way. They kinda go together. It was of all of
Nebuchadnezzar's
building projects, these are probably
the best known. There were eight gates that served as the
entrance to Babylon, but the Ishtar Gate was
the primary thoroughfare which led to an equally
impressive Processional Way. And in his inscription
of the gate, Nebuchadnezzar boasts how he constructed the gate
of baked glazed bricks depicting wild oxen
and raging dragons. And then of course, the Processional Way
carried on this motif of blue glazed bricks
and had a lion motif. Of course, lions were symbols
of power in the ancient world and figure prominently
in the Book of Daniel. Now, what's really
interesting here is that these were likely
completed around 575 BC, so Daniel had already been
in Babylon for some time, likely watched these
being constructed. And in Daniel 4, we read this account of
Nebuchadnezzar's dream, his pride, his downfall,
his humiliation, and his restoration because
he's so proud of what he built. And this likely happened
later in his reign, during 573 to 562. And so if this is the case, these inscriptions
of him boasting about these great things that he
built at the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way, add weight to the words
that Daniel includes there about the king's pride and
him needing to humble himself. >>Yeah. Fits right in the context as
we've been saying all along, or we often say. Okay, now we're
on to number five which is not "Babylon
5," the old TV show, but Babylonian Chronicle 5. For number five, go Bryan. >>All right, the
Babylonian Chronicle 5. the Babylonian Chronicles
are clay tablets written in cuneiform script that describe the
significant events in the Babylonian
Empire year by year. And the Chronicle for
the year 605 to 595, known as ABC 5, or more popularly as
the Jerusalem Chronicle, they cover the time,
the early time, when Daniel was in Babylon. It describes his accession. It's probably most
famous for the fact that it describes in details Nebuchadnezzar's siege
of Jerusalem in 597. Talks about him deposing
King Jehoiachin, appointing King Zedekiah,
taking tribute to Babylon. But what's really
interesting is that it actually alludes to the
earlier, his earlier campaign, when he took Daniel captive. It says this, "In the accession year, Nebuchadnezzar went back
again to the Hatti-Land." That's the Babylonian term for the region that included Judah. "And he marched unopposed
through the Hatti-Land and in the month of Sabatu,
he took heavy tribute from the Hatti-Land
territory to Babylon." And so while he is going
through this territory, Jerusalem is likely is one
of those places he stops. And Daniel is likely
one of the heavy tribute that's being described there, that is taken back to Babylon. >>It's cool stuff. Okay, one of my favorites. This is actually one of
my favorite discoveries related to Daniel. The Nabonidus
Cylinders, number four. >>Number four, Nabonidus
Cylinders. Yeah! These are really interesting because prior to the
middle of the 19th century, a Babylonian king
named Belshazzar, Daniel 5:1, was
unknown to history. Ancient historians like
Berosus and Abydenus recorded that Nabonidus was
the last king of Babylon. And this changed
of course in 1854 when J.E. Taylor
discovered four cylinders in the ruins of
a ziggurat at Ur, which contained a prayer
of King Nabonidus. And in this prayer, he prays
for his son, Belshazzar. He says, "As for Belshazzar,
my oldest son, my offspring, instill reverence for your
great godhead in his heart that he may not commit
any cultic mistake." And then in 1924, another inscription called the Persian verse account
of Nabonidus was discovered and it describes how
he, how Nabonidus, went on this big trip. And he says he entrusted
the army to his oldest son, his firstborn. He let everything go. He entrusted the kingship
to him and himself and he started out
on a long journey. Now, both of these
are really important because they affirm
that Belshazzar had been entrusted
with the kingship and was King of Babylon, reigning at the end, the night
actually, when Babylon fell. And it makes sense
then of the reward that Belshazzar offers
Daniel for the writing, translating the
writing on the wall. He offers him the third
highest place in the kingdom, not the second highest place. Third highest place
is all he could offer 'cause he was Co-Regent
with his father. >>Yeah, it's really fascinating. And for like you said, you know, for a long time the Greek
histories ended with Nabonidus. We didn't know anything
about Belshazzar except for from the Bible. It speaks right
into the political
structure of that time. Requires really an eyewitness
nature of the text, which is exactly
what we find, Bryan. Well, thank you for that. We're gonna talk
again about Nabonidus, another discovery related
to him in our next segment. And friends, thank you for joining us
for "Digging for Truth: "The Top 10 Discoveries
in the Book of Daniel." And we'll be right back. (upbeat music) >>"Bible and Spade"
is a non-technical quarterly publication
published by the Associates for
Biblical Research, written from a scholarly
and conservative viewpoint. "Bible and Spade" supports the inerrancy of
the biblical record and is a must-read for both
the serious Bible student and anyone asking if they
can really trust the Bible. Archeological evidence
properly interpreted, upholding the
history of the Bible. Subscribe today at
biblearchaeology.org. >>"Digging for
Truth" is produced and recorded in the
studios of Lighthouse TV. Positively different television. >>Hi. Welcome back to
"Digging for Truth." I'm Henry Smith, I'm your host, and I'm here with Bryan Windle, my friend and also
ABR staff member. The Lord also has him serving
as a pastor up in Canada. Okay, Bryan, we are down to
the top three discoveries. The Book of Daniel, I mean,
it's just such a rich book. There's so much history,
so much archeology. But you've identified
some exciting discoveries. Number three,
related to Nabonidus. Go ahead, please. >>All right. The number three
discovery, I think, in terms of importance
related to the Book of Daniel, is the Nabonidus Chronicle. The Babylonian Chronicle
for the years 556 to 539 are also called the
Nabonidus Chronicle. And it describes the final
years of Nabonidus's reign, and the Fall of Babylon to
Cyrus, the King of Persia. And it records this: When Cyrus did battle
against the armies of Akkad, the people of Akkad
retreated on the 16th day. Ugbaru, the Governor of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus, without
battle entered Babylon. And then a few days later,
Cyrus himself enters Babylon. And there are numerous
details in this text that are in alignment
with the brief biblical description of the
Fall of Babylon in Daniel 5. First of all, Babylon,
the city of Babylon, was captured without battle. And this seems to also
affirm Herodotus's account that the Persians
diverted the river which lowered the water
level of the river going into Babylon, and the Persian soldiers were
able to sneak in that way. And also that
Herodotus says that it was during a festival
that this happened. Which is of course, what
the biblical text says too. And Daniel 5 describes
the great feast the night that it fell. And so there's no mention
made of a battle there, it just simply states
that Belshazzar was slain and we know that
from history too. So it just, it all kind
of connects together. Obviously written by someone who had an intimate knowledge
of what was happening at that time. >>Yeah, I keep asking the
logical and apologetic question. How could a Daniel living
four centuries later in Israel have known all this? And it seems obvious
to me the answer. Okay, number two, Bryan. Really a really famous discovery that a lot of people may
have already heard of, but of great importance
related to the Book of Daniel. >>That's right. It's the Cyrus Cylinder. Daniel 6:28 records
that Daniel prospered during the reign of King Darius and the reign of
Cyrus the Persian. So Daniel spent most
of his life in Babylon. He lived through the reigns
of six Babylonian kings from Nebuchadnezzar through
to Nabonidus and Belshazzar. He lived through the
reign of Darius the Mede and there are different
views of who that is. And then at least into the
third year of Cyrus the Great, Daniel 10:1 says he
would've witnessed firsthand the Persian King's declaration releasing the Jewish people
to go back to Jerusalem and to rebuild the Temple. And in 1879, this clay cylinder
was discovered in
the ruins of Babylon, possibly in the
Temple of Marduk, although that's a little fuzzy. The Cyrus Cylinder, as
it's come to be known, records in Akkadian cuneiform, a general description
from Cyrus the Great allowing peoples who
were captive in Babylon to return to their homelands
and take their idols with them. He says, "The sacred centers on the
other side of the Tigris whose sanctuaries had been
abandoned for a long time. I returned the images of these
gods who had resided there to their places. I let them dwell
in eternal abodes. I gathered all the inhabitants and returned to them
to their dwellings." Of course, he's doing this to
try and appease all the gods and curry good favor with all
the gods of all the people. But the Cyrus Cylinder
makes clear that that was the policy, the policy that we see
described in the Book of Ezra. Now in the case of
the Jewish people, they didn't have idols and so they were allowed to
take back all of the vessels that had been taken
from the Temple and allowed to go back
and rebuild their Temple. >>Yeah, it's remarkable. And you know, there's many prophetic visions
given in the Old Testament to the prophets, but in this case we
actually got names names. Cyrus here, that's one of the unique
aspects of that prophecy. Okay, Bryan. Well, you know, they're
all exciting discoveries. But you know, here we are,
we're down to number one. The number one discovery
related to the Book of Daniel. >>Yeah. The number one discovery
related to the Book of Daniel, I think is the Dead Sea Scroll fragments
of the Book of Daniel. They're hugely important. First of all, Jesus attributed
the prophecies in Daniel to Daniel himself, Matthew 24. But many today, as we've
mentioned, would argue that the Book of Daniel was not
composed by Daniel the Prophet in the sixth century, but by someone much later
during the second century after, and this is key, after the prophecies that
are in the Book of Daniel. "Because," critics say, "There is no such thing
as foretelling the future. And so, this book
must have been written after these particular events." It's important to note the
presupposition of the critics and the bias that they have when they come to
this particular text. Now the problem
with that is that there have been a number of
copies and fragments of Daniel that were found in
the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the earliest dates
to the second century. And so there really
is not enough time for this book to
have been written, people say in the 160s BC, to encourage the Jews under,
who are being persecuted. There's not enough time for
the book to have been written to have been widely
spread around and then to have been
accepted as canonical. Because one of the things you
see at the Qumran community is that it was accepted
pretty much as canon. There's so many copies of it, it's quoted also in
other Qumran scrolls. And so there really
is not enough time for it to be widely circulated
and to be accepted as canon. And I think that this discovery
falsifies the view that it was a late second
century composition. It makes way more sense to accept it as a sixth
century composition, based on the details that
we know of from archeology and based on the fact that it's widely accepted now in
the second century at Qumran. >>Yeah. And the Qumran community was not the central authority
keeping the original scrolls. They would've been
kept in Jerusalem. So the fact that they were
already there buried in caves points to that. Okay, Bryan, I'm gonna give you 30
seconds to wrap up Daniel. How's that for an
assignment for ya? (Brian laughs) >>Sounds good. Here's how I look at it. If you look at this
with an open mind, and I will admit my bias
coming at scripture, having a high regard for it, but there are just
too many details that have been
affirmed by archeology that demonstrate that the Daniel describing
the sixth century is accurately describing
sixth century history details that a writer living
over 400 years later, I don't think could
have possibly known. And so it makes more
sense to say that these discoveries are authentic. That these, that the Book of
Daniel rather, is authentic, that it is
historically reliable, that it is describing a period that Daniel the Prophet
actually lived through and that his book
was widely circulated and accepted as canon
as it should be. >>Well, amen to that. Bryan, thank you for all the
good work on this subject and thanks for being
on the show once again. Well, friends, you could see that you can
trust the Book of Daniel and I'm reminded that Jesus points to Himself
as the Son of Man, which is in Daniel 7. The Son of Man came to
seek and save the lost. And we hope that you'll
embrace this truth today. Thank you for watching
"Digging for Truth." (dramatic orchestral music)
