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[Computer]

The Book of Daniel is unanimously dated to 167-164 BCE and is generally considered pseudepigraphica, which means that Jesus, or at least the later writers of the gospels, used a deceptive false book to describe him.

Once the author gets past its own time and tries to make genuine predictions it fails. Daniel was written while the revolt was still going on. The final "week" was the period from the assassination of Onias (171 BCE) to when Daniel thought the world would end in 164. Antiochus put a statue of Zeus in the Jerusalem Temple in 168 BCE (halfway into Daniel's last week). The author knows about these events, but everything he predicts after that failed to come true. Daniel says that Aniochus would conquer Egypt, come back to Palestine and finally be conquered by the angel Michael. Obviously, none of that happened. If the book isnt deceptive, than it is at least wrong. The author also has:

• Numerous historical errors and anachronisms. The book starts by claiming that Jerusalem fell in the third year of King Jehoiakim. This contradicts all known historical evidence, including the timeline from Jeremiah. There are also a number of indications that the author confused Nebuchadrezzar with Nabonidus. One of the more important characters from the book, Darius the Mede, is totally unknown to history and appears to be either a complete fabrication or a conflation of several other people.
• The succession of nations in the book appears to be wrong. According to Daniel, it was Babylon, Media, Persia and Greece. In reality, Media fell to Persia about 15 years before the fall of Babylon.
• There is ample evidence from the text that the author expected the Greek Seleucid king Antiochus IV to be the catalyst that sparked the final battle between God and ad his enemies. The author expected that this battle would end with the the destruction of the earthly system and the institution of the literal Kingdom of God.
• When read in context, all of Daniel's prophecies point to Antiochus IV. The author thus expected him to be the last King of the Seleucid line, and that the 'time of the end' would therefore be about 164 BC.
• The book of Daniel is totally unknown prior to about 150 BC. There are a number of lists of books considered sacred by the Jews - Daniel is not among them.

Jesus uses the "Son of Man" figure in Daniel 7 to describe himself: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+7&version=NIV

“In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,[a] coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all nations and peoples of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.

Why should we take the NT authors seriously with this considered?

[jimwalton]

> The Book of Daniel is unanimously dated to 167-164 BCE

This is untrue. There are biblical scholars who argue for the 600-540 writing date (Collins, Wallace, to name two).

> Daniel was written while the revolt was still going on.

This is theorized but unproved.

> Numerous historical errors and anachronisms. The book starts by claiming that Jerusalem fell in the third year of King Jehoiakim.

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. i. No proof has ever been brought forward that there was not, or could not have been, a siege of Jerusalem in 605 BC.

> There are also a number of indications that the author confused Nebuchadrezzar with Nabonidus.

There is a distinct possibility that Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus were related through the mother. In addition, an Assyrian text shows that merely a royal successor on a throne could be called a “son” of a predecessor, even if there were no blood relationship.

> One of the more important characters from the book, Darius the Mede, is totally unknown to history and appears to be either a complete fabrication or a conflation of several other people.

Many ancient personages have not been found in the record. Again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. No proof has ever been brought forward that there was not, or could not have been, a ruler called Darius the Mede. New discoveries are being made all the time of new Egyptian kings and rulers. In the 1980s, the first-ever name of a high ranking Semite official was found in Sakkara, Egypt. This vizier "Aper-el" was completely unknown to modern scholarship until this discovery, despite the fact that he lived in one of the better documented periods of Egyptian history (the 14th c. BC) and was buried in arguably the most excavated site in all Egypt!

The name "David" was found for the first time in Israel in the mid-1990s. The absence of a name in archaeology is no proof of his non-existence.

> The succession of nations in the book appears to be wrong. According to Daniel, it was Babylon, Media, Persia and Greece. In reality, Media fell to Persia about 15 years before the fall of Babylon.

All these "facts" make me wonder what website you've tapped into for your information.

> When read in context, all of Daniel's prophecies point to Antiochus IV.

It's very possible that they do, and it's also possible that they point to Antiochus and to a person beyond him further in the future, a prophetic literary strategy common to biblical prophecy. Such things certainly don't assure a later writing.

> The author thus expected him to be the last King of the Seleucid line, and that the 'time of the end' would therefore be about 164 BC.

It's not that the time of the end would be about 164 BC, but the time of the savior coming, which could refer to the Maccabean revolt. it could be accurately prophetic, especially if written in 600 BC.

> The book of Daniel is totally unknown prior to about 150 BC. There are a number of lists of books considered sacred by the Jews - Daniel is not among them.

This is not true. The Septuagint (written from 300-200 BC) contains Daniel (even though we have no copies from that era). But it shows that Daniel was known before the Maccabean era.

> Why should we take the NT authors seriously with this considered?

The debate for the authorship and dating of Daniel is very complex, with many arguments on both sides. There is a list of evidences showing us that Daniel was from before the Maccabean era, just as there is one showing us that it was *from* that era.

There is reason to take the NT authors seriously because the case is not clean cut and straightforward, the way you have portrayed it. It's more than probable that the NT writers knew far more about it than we do. The case is far from settled, so we can't conclude the NT writers were mistaken.