Daniel and history
By Mark Morgan | Daniel

Students of history must often assess credibility. For example, when two historical records contradict each other (e.g. Herodotus and Xenophon), which – if either! – should you believe? There are many reasons why this is not an easy question to answer, and even if one decides to accept a given historian’s record of a particular event, one may consider the other historian’s report of a different situation more credible. Most of the time, historians are describing events they have not personally witnessed, which leaves them at the mercy of their sources – although a healthy scepticism can help a historian avoid being too badly misled by unreliable sources. What about Daniel and history?
I am not a historian, I am a Bible student. However, I find history fascinating, particularly where it relates to the Bible. I also have a healthy dose of scepticism, so when many scholars (theologians and historians) dismiss Daniel as religious fiction and assign a composition date of the third or early second-century BC for the first six chapters, and 167-164BC for the later chapters, I ask why.