Tuesday, June 10, 2025

Radiocarbon follies, Daniel edition

Nongbri a few days ago reported on 4Q114 redated: 230-160 BC. This holds Daniel 8-11 (Hebrew).

Now: "Daniel" as we have it is a mess. Daniel 4 differs wildly between MT/Brenton and Rahlfs-LXX, and then there's the Prayer of Nabunai likely behind both. Daniel 4 happens to reside within an Imperial Aramaic section chs. 2-7, rare in this otherwise-Hebrew Bible.

But we are talking about Daniel 8. This chapter predicts Antiochus Epiphanes. The pagan Porphyry in Against the Christians called this out as vaticinium-ex-eventu. Why skip over centuries when preaching to your own folk?

This blog's opinion, which I believe is a consistent opinion, is that radiocarbon is a dumb way to nail down the time of your document. If Christians (or Jews like David Ganz) want to proclaim this as proof of some Calvinist Judaeo-Christianity... then they cannot complain if British Muslims point to the Birmingham Qur'aaan's likewise early date.

BACKDATE 6/12

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