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SOURCE NOTICE: The source of this page came from the Book of Daniel#Darius the Mede. It was moved on 00:09, 26 September 2011 and pasted onto this page on 00:20, 26 September 2011. Thanks, Jasonasosa ( talk) 02:55, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I flagged the section on historicity as possibly containing original research. My concern centers around the statement, "These references show that in antiquity there was a remembrance of a ruler of Persia or Media named Darius who preceded Darius the Great, and this remembrance was outside of and independent of the book of Daniel. However, almost all recent commentators on the book of Daniel either choose to ignore these ancient sources that name a king Darius before Darius I Hystaspes, or they are not aware of them, incorrectly saying instead that Daniel’s Darius the Mede is not found in any ancient source except the book of Daniel or writings derived from it." My experience has been that professional historians rarely "choose to ignore" ancient sources, and the whole of the first three paragraphs, though interesting, doesn't seem to track well with my understanding of how historians work. This is my first edit, and I hope I have followed proper protocol. Please let me know if I screwed up! Frederick Jacob Kohn ( talk) 00:52, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
I am coming late to this discussion, but I would not assume Harpocration and his Alexandrian sources were necessarily independent of the Book of Daniel. Compare Manetho (3rd century BC), one of our primary sources on Ancient Egyptian history. If the surviving summaries of his work are factual, Manetho thought that Moses was a historical figure and apparently identified him with Osarseph. Suggesting that Alexandrian scholars had access to Jewish sources even before the Septuagint was written. And the Septuagint does include the Book of Daniel, allowing anyone with access to it to write about Darius the Mede.
As for Berossus, unfortunately his work is lost. What we have are second-hand accounts by Jewish and Christian writers such as Josephus, Eusebius, Hesychius of Alexandria, and Agathias. Any error in textual transmission could have attributed to Berossus works by other writers. Dimadick ( talk) 14:57, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
If I write, "Josephus speaks of a King Croesus who was contemporaneous with Cyrus the Great", is it original research?
If I write "Berossus speaks of a King Darius who was contemporaneous with Cyrus the Great", is it original research?
Evert Wandelaar, I don't see what point you're trying to make with this edit - the article mentions Darius I, and you want to put in something about Darius II. What's the relevance? PiCo ( talk) 22:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
PiCo,
I guess I note the Darius in the book of Ezra is according to the Elephantine papiry, considering the same two names and positions mentioned there, Darius II.
The Darius of the book of Ezra uses the king's title which was only introduced by Xerxes as well (after he had melted down the golden Bel statue Xerxes stopped using the title 'king of the Babylonians').
So the statement in the article: Darius in the book of Ezra = Darius I does not seem to be in line with existing original research.
Evert Wandelaar ( talk) 15:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
"his role in the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem" does suggest it. If it means something else perhaps it should be explained? Evert Wandelaar ( talk) 22:57, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
So we disagree about this, however your opinion is already mentioned in the article. I think for balance I should be allowed to mention a bit of the contra research as well? Evert Wandelaar ( talk) 23:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
It seems slightly biased to posit the notion of identifying 'Darius the Mede' with any real person in history as a view of 'conservatives'. With the exception that 'Darius the Mede' is referred to in Daniel as 'king', Gubaru (the General who conquered Babylon) fits as a ruler in Babylon between Belshazzar and Cyrus. He is rejected on the basis that he wasn't actually king, but Belshazzar is also called a 'king' in Daniel though he wasn't actually king either. It therefore seems inconsistent to say that 'Darius the Mede' must be 'entirely fictional' on the basis that he couldn't actually be a king. It is entirely plausible that the author of Daniel referred to the governor in Babylon as 'king' (either in error or intentionally in a generic sense of ruler similar to Belshazzar) and called him Darius either as a result of confusion or as a deliberate analogy about later Persian rulers with that name. Of course, it remains the fact that the events attributed to 'Darius the Mede' in the book of Daniel are fictionalised.-- Jeffro77 ( talk) 09:25, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Is it not possible that Daniel was talking about Darius I instead of Darius the Mede? I suggest that an alternative translation of the original languages could readily be stated as: "Daniel 11:1 United, Darius and the Medes siezed the fortified city of Babylon..." I state this because there are only seven original words but the english rendition is twelve words longer with no clarification on their source nor context. Whilst this could be considered original research does it not constitute reasonable doubt that the rtanslators may actually have got the context incorrect after more than 1000 years after the events? You see, Darius I fits the precise timeline that is required to prove the text true but we cannot rely solely upon the english value but entirely upon the original text with a margin of error allowance for language translation incompatability. Natural language does not say Queen Elizabeth the second when we refer to the oly known living queen of england whom contemporary conversations would recognise. Maybe you see my point or maybe you don't. Either way, this argument casts doubt that there was a Darius who was a mede but if you read the earlier prophecy from the forgotten dream of nebuchadnezzar you discover that the Mededs and the persians formed an allinace to take Babylon together which means Darius I could very well have been at the victory of Babylonian capture. What are your thoughts? Ashattock ( talk) 04:25, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Well that's a cop out on both counts in my opinion. I asked for your opinion so as to formulate an argument worth mentioning so that anyone apssing through the page might be able to make an academic note and possibly find an answer that both you and I have definitely missed. We cannot rely upon our authority or lack thereof because consensus is not truth, just an agreement of equally minded people. Ashattock ( talk) 14:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Copy of Tgeorgescu's comment on my talk page, transferred to this one for simplicity.
Welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate
your contributions, but in one of your recent edits to
Darius the Mede, it appears that you have added
original research, which is against Wikipedia's policies. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses
combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a
reliable source for all of your contributions. Thank you.
Tgeorgescu (
talk)
05:06, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
G. Byrns Coleman (1990). Watson E. Mills; Roger Aubrey Bullard (eds.). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-86554-373-7. Source is adamant: Cyrus, not Koresh. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 05:01, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
In the third year of King Cyrus of Persia, an oracle was revealed to Daniel, who was called Belteshazzar. That oracle was true, <·but it was a great task to understand the prophecy; understanding came to him through the vision:<
{{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help) This source simply translates as Cyrus (p. 1641, 1655). The word "Koresh" does not appear in the book. We don't do
WP:GEVAL. So, if you get past
WP:OR, you're likely to get stuck at
WP:FRINGE or
WP:UNDUE. See
WP:NOTNEUTRAL: we don't treat all opinions equally.
Tgeorgescu (
talk)
11:06, 22 May 2018 (UTC)"Koresh," the name that David had legally adopted for himself, is Hebrew for Cyrus, the name of the ancient Persian king who destroyed the Babylonian empire in 539 B.C.E.With this quote I think the matter is settled: Koresh is the Hebrew name for Cyrus. The idea that Koresh isn't Cyrus is a non-view, i.e. it is WP:CB for the academia, see WP:CHOPSY. Wikipedia isn't a repository for such crackpot ideas. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 04:43, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
This entire conversation is bizarre and should never have taken place. All the sources cited for our article use Cyrus the Great and/or Cyrus. If the OP has a problem he should take it up with them. PiCo ( talk) 09:14, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
The source is here. [1] Seow does say there was a Daniel in Canaanite lore, one who worshipped El, chief of the Canaanite pantheon. He carefully doesn't say he was historical. He goes into detail about the historical discrepancies, but says that "the value of the book of Daniel as scripture does not depend on the historical accuracy of the props on its literary stage, but on the power of its theological message. The authority of the book as scripture lies in its power to inspire and shape the community of faith. The book of Daniel functions as scripture inasmuch as it instructs the community as to the ways of God and the w'ays that community members should conduct themselves before the sovereign God. The presence of historical discrepancies by no means suggests that the work is totally devoid of historical information. Indeed, in contrast to the discrepancies in details from the period of its historical setting in the sixth and fifth centuries, the book is remarkably precise in its allusions to certain events in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods down to the time just before the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, at the end of 164 B.C.E."
We should always attribute quotes, and we should avoid taking them out of context. We need full citations with the name of the book, author, and page number/s. Not Worldcat links. Doug Weller talk 18:21, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, a highly dubious organization, has accredited Piedmont International University, which conferred a doctorate to George Law. I cannot find anything about his publishing house, so I assume it is WP:SPS. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 00:07, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Dear Editors,
would somebody please delete that lie from the section 'The Book of Daniel' according to which "there is no Darius known to history..." (quoted from Coleman)? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius, will you? The problem is with someone thinking that he is writing science and claiming such a thing (Coleman). (What a shame on scientists, contradictions within the same article... I am going to show you why I am sure Wikipedia deserves better "science.")
Every scientist today knows that the person in question received power in 539 BC, but this does not necessarily make him a Persian by any logic. By just 3 more clicks here on Wikipedia, I am able to show who this 'Darius' was:
1> Belshazzar -- written: "Ugbaru, governor of the district of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon..." (Babylonian Chronicle)—this is... the same individual as Gobryas, a Babylonian provincial governor who switched to the Persian side, mentioned by the Greek historian Xenophon. 2> Gutium -- please read: Assyrian royal annals use the term Gutians in relation to populations known to have been Medes or Mannaeans. -- So, the name "Gobrias" is 'Darius' in Daniel; no question. Also, please consult 3> Astyages (found as the father of this 'Darius' linked in the article "Ahuasuerus"), and you will ascertain that it could be the form of several names, 'Xerxes' in Esther, and Ishtuvegu according to Josephus (neither SEEMS very similar), and--no wonder--he was a Mede, in that same perfect time when (and exactly in the way) he could be the father of Gobrias.
This was really a cca. 20-minute research by the help of Wikipedia; the time to put it in writing was longer. Kindly consider it, take action, and believe that Wikipedia does not need references that quote lies. Yes, I am stricken to witness that authors of pseudo-scientific content would us swallow that history cannot be proven. Wikipedia must be free from these. Respectfully,
K. Gergely — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.119.200 ( talk) 23:29, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
Does Encyclopedia Britannica seek to pass Darius the Mede for a genuine historical person? Does Encyclopedia Iranica? Does Encyclopedia Judaica? So neither should we. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 06:27, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you heartily, Dutch editor, that the people in charge can see my sentences in their right place! (Forgive me if my edits are not professional, please.) I am interested in facts, not opinions. So I assume with strong reason that people using Wikipedia are looking for facts ordered so that it makes sense to be called (some) information. If this is the aim of Wikipedia, why are you dwelling on side-issues? A reader wants Wikipedia to be presenting facts, as I showed you all it does many times. I do not believe that Wikipedia as a free encyclopedia can have exactly the same purpose as you imagine it. Opinions only arise on the basis of facts. So why would an WP:Editor not show facts for what they are? Quoting such 'fundamentalists' as Coleman, as you called some statement-centred radicals (your wording might illustrate their error), works for reducing the gravity of facts. If Wikipedia must change in order to better highlight facts, it is going to. You may be part of it, and I. In this hope, K. Gergely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.38.122.121 ( talk • contribs)
Someone undid my very short edit and then berated me on my talk page. I was not trolling, I just made a small correction in wording — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
JimboBuckets99 (
talk •
contribs)
07:05, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
@ Fred3001: Stop POV-pushing that WP:FRINGE rubbish made for True Believers. tgeorgescu ( talk) 15:58, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
And... Dougherty? He died before WW2. tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:06, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
No Jewish or Christian Bible scholars assert that Darius the Mede was a real person and that the Book of Daniel has historicity, except for the most rabid fundamentalists. Why do I call them rabid
? Because they are the only ones working with the mindset of objective historical evidence be damned if it dares to contradict the Bible
. Such people don't endorse objectivity and the objective truth, so in this sense they aren't Christians. More likely, they are active nihilists posing as Christians.
I get attacked by both sides, rather vigorously, and my personal view of it is that I'm not actually against Christianity at all, I'm against certain forms of fundamentalism and, and, so virtually everything I say in my book are things that Christian scholars of the New Testament readily agree with, it's just that they are not hard-core evangelicals who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. If you believe in the inerrancy of the Bible then I suppose I'd be the enemy, but there are lot of Christian forms of belief that have nothing to do with inerrancy.
— Bart Ehrman, Bart Ehrman vs Tim McGrew - Round 1 at YouTube
Quoted by tgeorgescu ( talk) 10:36, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
From what I know, I'll agree that New Testament scholars may "often train as historians", but the problem is that some of the stuff you can get published as an NT scholar (in theological journals) would basically be laughed or booed off the stage if presented to a roomful of historians. That you even have such a thing as inerrantism in NT scholarship is indicative of the difference (because inerrantism is a downright anti-historical concept). I agree that not all of NT scholarship necessarily suffers from this problem, but it needs to be factored in when questions of "scholarly consensus" among NT scholars is cited. It simply has to be remembered that a consensus among NT scholars has at least some aspects of a consensus among theologians and is thus not directly equivalent to a consensus among historians, archaeologists or other academic fields. The problem is that such an adjustment would probably run counter to both Wikipedia policy on neutrality and fringe views, because the overwhelming majority of NT scholars are theologians and professing Christians (as the minority who aren't will be quick to point out). This is again a rather unsurprising consequence of both the nature of the field of study (believers are basically more likely to take up the study of their faith) and its tight connection to theology (I can't think of that many NT studies institutions which aren't run by Theology departments). Being that closely connected to theology also means that issues of controversy quickly becomes issues of faith and orthodoxy to a degree rarely found in other academic disciplines. Mojowiha ( talk) 20:59, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
https://oi.uchicago.edu/collections/photographic-archives/persepolis/palace-darius 2601:246:4501:34A0:FD53:1DEC:C6E4:A91C ( talk) 16:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
My additions have been contested by two editors, Doug Weller and Achar Sva, and I was told to address any objections here before going any further. Weller first (18:08, 16 Sep) inexplicably reverted my attempt to fix a citation which I myself had added incorrectly. He then (18:09, 16 Sep) reverted my attempt to clean up an unreferenced paraphraph and add a source to it, again without offering much in the way of reasoning. Later, Achar Sva (8:35, 13 Nov) announced that he could not find a source, but rather than simply remove that, he blanket-reverted (without any explanation) the entirety of my edits to this article going back several months, including those that had never been contested. No adequate grounds have been given to remove any, let alone all, of the sources or content I have added, and these should be reinstated pending a better explanation. ;argive8 ( talk) 23:57, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Hi ;argive8. My problem with your edit was (is) the statement that Cyaxeres (the name) is "a variant of the name of Darius the Mede's father Ahasuerus" (this is in the bullet-point relating to Astyages). This conflicts markedly with the older text, which says that Astyages' father "was named Cyaxares (not Ahasuerus/Xerxes), and there is no record of him being present at the fall of Babylon". Your edit names its source (a reliable one), and so does the older edit (either Shea or Newsom&Breed - it really needs to be clearer on that point). This seems to me to be an irreconcilable contradiction not due to a misreading of the sources, and I'd like it to be clarified. Unfortunately I can't access your source - can you help with that? What's the publication date? Achar Sva ( talk) 22:09, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
... isn't about Darius the Mede, but about Darius I. Source: Schuster, Ruth (1 March 2023). "Inscription Naming Persian King Darius, Father of King Ahasuerus, Discovered in Southern Israel". Haaretz.com. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
Criticism of the inscription: On the Unprovenanced "Darius Inscription" on YouTube. tgeorgescu ( talk) 21:43, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
It's a FAKE: The Unprovenanced "Darius Inscription" is Not Authentic on YouTube tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:25, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
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SOURCE NOTICE: The source of this page came from the Book of Daniel#Darius the Mede. It was moved on 00:09, 26 September 2011 and pasted onto this page on 00:20, 26 September 2011. Thanks, Jasonasosa ( talk) 02:55, 1 October 2011 (UTC)
I flagged the section on historicity as possibly containing original research. My concern centers around the statement, "These references show that in antiquity there was a remembrance of a ruler of Persia or Media named Darius who preceded Darius the Great, and this remembrance was outside of and independent of the book of Daniel. However, almost all recent commentators on the book of Daniel either choose to ignore these ancient sources that name a king Darius before Darius I Hystaspes, or they are not aware of them, incorrectly saying instead that Daniel’s Darius the Mede is not found in any ancient source except the book of Daniel or writings derived from it." My experience has been that professional historians rarely "choose to ignore" ancient sources, and the whole of the first three paragraphs, though interesting, doesn't seem to track well with my understanding of how historians work. This is my first edit, and I hope I have followed proper protocol. Please let me know if I screwed up! Frederick Jacob Kohn ( talk) 00:52, 31 May 2015 (UTC)
I am coming late to this discussion, but I would not assume Harpocration and his Alexandrian sources were necessarily independent of the Book of Daniel. Compare Manetho (3rd century BC), one of our primary sources on Ancient Egyptian history. If the surviving summaries of his work are factual, Manetho thought that Moses was a historical figure and apparently identified him with Osarseph. Suggesting that Alexandrian scholars had access to Jewish sources even before the Septuagint was written. And the Septuagint does include the Book of Daniel, allowing anyone with access to it to write about Darius the Mede.
As for Berossus, unfortunately his work is lost. What we have are second-hand accounts by Jewish and Christian writers such as Josephus, Eusebius, Hesychius of Alexandria, and Agathias. Any error in textual transmission could have attributed to Berossus works by other writers. Dimadick ( talk) 14:57, 18 December 2015 (UTC)
If I write, "Josephus speaks of a King Croesus who was contemporaneous with Cyrus the Great", is it original research?
If I write "Berossus speaks of a King Darius who was contemporaneous with Cyrus the Great", is it original research?
Evert Wandelaar, I don't see what point you're trying to make with this edit - the article mentions Darius I, and you want to put in something about Darius II. What's the relevance? PiCo ( talk) 22:35, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
PiCo,
I guess I note the Darius in the book of Ezra is according to the Elephantine papiry, considering the same two names and positions mentioned there, Darius II.
The Darius of the book of Ezra uses the king's title which was only introduced by Xerxes as well (after he had melted down the golden Bel statue Xerxes stopped using the title 'king of the Babylonians').
So the statement in the article: Darius in the book of Ezra = Darius I does not seem to be in line with existing original research.
Evert Wandelaar ( talk) 15:02, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
"his role in the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem" does suggest it. If it means something else perhaps it should be explained? Evert Wandelaar ( talk) 22:57, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
So we disagree about this, however your opinion is already mentioned in the article. I think for balance I should be allowed to mention a bit of the contra research as well? Evert Wandelaar ( talk) 23:30, 6 March 2017 (UTC)
It seems slightly biased to posit the notion of identifying 'Darius the Mede' with any real person in history as a view of 'conservatives'. With the exception that 'Darius the Mede' is referred to in Daniel as 'king', Gubaru (the General who conquered Babylon) fits as a ruler in Babylon between Belshazzar and Cyrus. He is rejected on the basis that he wasn't actually king, but Belshazzar is also called a 'king' in Daniel though he wasn't actually king either. It therefore seems inconsistent to say that 'Darius the Mede' must be 'entirely fictional' on the basis that he couldn't actually be a king. It is entirely plausible that the author of Daniel referred to the governor in Babylon as 'king' (either in error or intentionally in a generic sense of ruler similar to Belshazzar) and called him Darius either as a result of confusion or as a deliberate analogy about later Persian rulers with that name. Of course, it remains the fact that the events attributed to 'Darius the Mede' in the book of Daniel are fictionalised.-- Jeffro77 ( talk) 09:25, 10 June 2017 (UTC)
Is it not possible that Daniel was talking about Darius I instead of Darius the Mede? I suggest that an alternative translation of the original languages could readily be stated as: "Daniel 11:1 United, Darius and the Medes siezed the fortified city of Babylon..." I state this because there are only seven original words but the english rendition is twelve words longer with no clarification on their source nor context. Whilst this could be considered original research does it not constitute reasonable doubt that the rtanslators may actually have got the context incorrect after more than 1000 years after the events? You see, Darius I fits the precise timeline that is required to prove the text true but we cannot rely solely upon the english value but entirely upon the original text with a margin of error allowance for language translation incompatability. Natural language does not say Queen Elizabeth the second when we refer to the oly known living queen of england whom contemporary conversations would recognise. Maybe you see my point or maybe you don't. Either way, this argument casts doubt that there was a Darius who was a mede but if you read the earlier prophecy from the forgotten dream of nebuchadnezzar you discover that the Mededs and the persians formed an allinace to take Babylon together which means Darius I could very well have been at the victory of Babylonian capture. What are your thoughts? Ashattock ( talk) 04:25, 29 March 2018 (UTC)
Well that's a cop out on both counts in my opinion. I asked for your opinion so as to formulate an argument worth mentioning so that anyone apssing through the page might be able to make an academic note and possibly find an answer that both you and I have definitely missed. We cannot rely upon our authority or lack thereof because consensus is not truth, just an agreement of equally minded people. Ashattock ( talk) 14:42, 20 September 2018 (UTC)
Copy of Tgeorgescu's comment on my talk page, transferred to this one for simplicity.
Welcome to Wikipedia. We appreciate
your contributions, but in one of your recent edits to
Darius the Mede, it appears that you have added
original research, which is against Wikipedia's policies. Original research refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and personal experiences—for which no reliable, published sources exist; it also encompasses
combining published sources in a way to imply something that none of them explicitly say. Please be prepared to cite a
reliable source for all of your contributions. Thank you.
Tgeorgescu (
talk)
05:06, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
G. Byrns Coleman (1990). Watson E. Mills; Roger Aubrey Bullard (eds.). Mercer Dictionary of the Bible. Mercer University Press. p. 198. ISBN 978-0-86554-373-7. Source is adamant: Cyrus, not Koresh. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 05:01, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
In the third year of King Cyrus of Persia, an oracle was revealed to Daniel, who was called Belteshazzar. That oracle was true, <·but it was a great task to understand the prophecy; understanding came to him through the vision:<
{{
cite book}}
: Invalid |ref=harv
(
help) This source simply translates as Cyrus (p. 1641, 1655). The word "Koresh" does not appear in the book. We don't do
WP:GEVAL. So, if you get past
WP:OR, you're likely to get stuck at
WP:FRINGE or
WP:UNDUE. See
WP:NOTNEUTRAL: we don't treat all opinions equally.
Tgeorgescu (
talk)
11:06, 22 May 2018 (UTC)"Koresh," the name that David had legally adopted for himself, is Hebrew for Cyrus, the name of the ancient Persian king who destroyed the Babylonian empire in 539 B.C.E.With this quote I think the matter is settled: Koresh is the Hebrew name for Cyrus. The idea that Koresh isn't Cyrus is a non-view, i.e. it is WP:CB for the academia, see WP:CHOPSY. Wikipedia isn't a repository for such crackpot ideas. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 04:43, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
This entire conversation is bizarre and should never have taken place. All the sources cited for our article use Cyrus the Great and/or Cyrus. If the OP has a problem he should take it up with them. PiCo ( talk) 09:14, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
The source is here. [1] Seow does say there was a Daniel in Canaanite lore, one who worshipped El, chief of the Canaanite pantheon. He carefully doesn't say he was historical. He goes into detail about the historical discrepancies, but says that "the value of the book of Daniel as scripture does not depend on the historical accuracy of the props on its literary stage, but on the power of its theological message. The authority of the book as scripture lies in its power to inspire and shape the community of faith. The book of Daniel functions as scripture inasmuch as it instructs the community as to the ways of God and the w'ays that community members should conduct themselves before the sovereign God. The presence of historical discrepancies by no means suggests that the work is totally devoid of historical information. Indeed, in contrast to the discrepancies in details from the period of its historical setting in the sixth and fifth centuries, the book is remarkably precise in its allusions to certain events in the Ptolemaic and Seleucid periods down to the time just before the death of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, at the end of 164 B.C.E."
We should always attribute quotes, and we should avoid taking them out of context. We need full citations with the name of the book, author, and page number/s. Not Worldcat links. Doug Weller talk 18:21, 6 June 2018 (UTC)
Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, a highly dubious organization, has accredited Piedmont International University, which conferred a doctorate to George Law. I cannot find anything about his publishing house, so I assume it is WP:SPS. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 00:07, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
Dear Editors,
would somebody please delete that lie from the section 'The Book of Daniel' according to which "there is no Darius known to history..." (quoted from Coleman)? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius, will you? The problem is with someone thinking that he is writing science and claiming such a thing (Coleman). (What a shame on scientists, contradictions within the same article... I am going to show you why I am sure Wikipedia deserves better "science.")
Every scientist today knows that the person in question received power in 539 BC, but this does not necessarily make him a Persian by any logic. By just 3 more clicks here on Wikipedia, I am able to show who this 'Darius' was:
1> Belshazzar -- written: "Ugbaru, governor of the district of Gutium, and the army of Cyrus entered Babylon..." (Babylonian Chronicle)—this is... the same individual as Gobryas, a Babylonian provincial governor who switched to the Persian side, mentioned by the Greek historian Xenophon. 2> Gutium -- please read: Assyrian royal annals use the term Gutians in relation to populations known to have been Medes or Mannaeans. -- So, the name "Gobrias" is 'Darius' in Daniel; no question. Also, please consult 3> Astyages (found as the father of this 'Darius' linked in the article "Ahuasuerus"), and you will ascertain that it could be the form of several names, 'Xerxes' in Esther, and Ishtuvegu according to Josephus (neither SEEMS very similar), and--no wonder--he was a Mede, in that same perfect time when (and exactly in the way) he could be the father of Gobrias.
This was really a cca. 20-minute research by the help of Wikipedia; the time to put it in writing was longer. Kindly consider it, take action, and believe that Wikipedia does not need references that quote lies. Yes, I am stricken to witness that authors of pseudo-scientific content would us swallow that history cannot be proven. Wikipedia must be free from these. Respectfully,
K. Gergely — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.143.119.200 ( talk) 23:29, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
Does Encyclopedia Britannica seek to pass Darius the Mede for a genuine historical person? Does Encyclopedia Iranica? Does Encyclopedia Judaica? So neither should we. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 06:27, 17 August 2020 (UTC)
Thank you heartily, Dutch editor, that the people in charge can see my sentences in their right place! (Forgive me if my edits are not professional, please.) I am interested in facts, not opinions. So I assume with strong reason that people using Wikipedia are looking for facts ordered so that it makes sense to be called (some) information. If this is the aim of Wikipedia, why are you dwelling on side-issues? A reader wants Wikipedia to be presenting facts, as I showed you all it does many times. I do not believe that Wikipedia as a free encyclopedia can have exactly the same purpose as you imagine it. Opinions only arise on the basis of facts. So why would an WP:Editor not show facts for what they are? Quoting such 'fundamentalists' as Coleman, as you called some statement-centred radicals (your wording might illustrate their error), works for reducing the gravity of facts. If Wikipedia must change in order to better highlight facts, it is going to. You may be part of it, and I. In this hope, K. Gergely. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.38.122.121 ( talk • contribs)
Someone undid my very short edit and then berated me on my talk page. I was not trolling, I just made a small correction in wording — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
JimboBuckets99 (
talk •
contribs)
07:05, 16 March 2021 (UTC)
@ Fred3001: Stop POV-pushing that WP:FRINGE rubbish made for True Believers. tgeorgescu ( talk) 15:58, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
And... Dougherty? He died before WW2. tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:06, 8 June 2021 (UTC)
No Jewish or Christian Bible scholars assert that Darius the Mede was a real person and that the Book of Daniel has historicity, except for the most rabid fundamentalists. Why do I call them rabid
? Because they are the only ones working with the mindset of objective historical evidence be damned if it dares to contradict the Bible
. Such people don't endorse objectivity and the objective truth, so in this sense they aren't Christians. More likely, they are active nihilists posing as Christians.
I get attacked by both sides, rather vigorously, and my personal view of it is that I'm not actually against Christianity at all, I'm against certain forms of fundamentalism and, and, so virtually everything I say in my book are things that Christian scholars of the New Testament readily agree with, it's just that they are not hard-core evangelicals who believe in the inerrancy of the Bible. If you believe in the inerrancy of the Bible then I suppose I'd be the enemy, but there are lot of Christian forms of belief that have nothing to do with inerrancy.
— Bart Ehrman, Bart Ehrman vs Tim McGrew - Round 1 at YouTube
Quoted by tgeorgescu ( talk) 10:36, 24 December 2021 (UTC)
From what I know, I'll agree that New Testament scholars may "often train as historians", but the problem is that some of the stuff you can get published as an NT scholar (in theological journals) would basically be laughed or booed off the stage if presented to a roomful of historians. That you even have such a thing as inerrantism in NT scholarship is indicative of the difference (because inerrantism is a downright anti-historical concept). I agree that not all of NT scholarship necessarily suffers from this problem, but it needs to be factored in when questions of "scholarly consensus" among NT scholars is cited. It simply has to be remembered that a consensus among NT scholars has at least some aspects of a consensus among theologians and is thus not directly equivalent to a consensus among historians, archaeologists or other academic fields. The problem is that such an adjustment would probably run counter to both Wikipedia policy on neutrality and fringe views, because the overwhelming majority of NT scholars are theologians and professing Christians (as the minority who aren't will be quick to point out). This is again a rather unsurprising consequence of both the nature of the field of study (believers are basically more likely to take up the study of their faith) and its tight connection to theology (I can't think of that many NT studies institutions which aren't run by Theology departments). Being that closely connected to theology also means that issues of controversy quickly becomes issues of faith and orthodoxy to a degree rarely found in other academic disciplines. Mojowiha ( talk) 20:59, 8 December 2014 (UTC)
https://oi.uchicago.edu/collections/photographic-archives/persepolis/palace-darius 2601:246:4501:34A0:FD53:1DEC:C6E4:A91C ( talk) 16:57, 29 October 2022 (UTC)
My additions have been contested by two editors, Doug Weller and Achar Sva, and I was told to address any objections here before going any further. Weller first (18:08, 16 Sep) inexplicably reverted my attempt to fix a citation which I myself had added incorrectly. He then (18:09, 16 Sep) reverted my attempt to clean up an unreferenced paraphraph and add a source to it, again without offering much in the way of reasoning. Later, Achar Sva (8:35, 13 Nov) announced that he could not find a source, but rather than simply remove that, he blanket-reverted (without any explanation) the entirety of my edits to this article going back several months, including those that had never been contested. No adequate grounds have been given to remove any, let alone all, of the sources or content I have added, and these should be reinstated pending a better explanation. ;argive8 ( talk) 23:57, 23 November 2022 (UTC)
Hi ;argive8. My problem with your edit was (is) the statement that Cyaxeres (the name) is "a variant of the name of Darius the Mede's father Ahasuerus" (this is in the bullet-point relating to Astyages). This conflicts markedly with the older text, which says that Astyages' father "was named Cyaxares (not Ahasuerus/Xerxes), and there is no record of him being present at the fall of Babylon". Your edit names its source (a reliable one), and so does the older edit (either Shea or Newsom&Breed - it really needs to be clearer on that point). This seems to me to be an irreconcilable contradiction not due to a misreading of the sources, and I'd like it to be clarified. Unfortunately I can't access your source - can you help with that? What's the publication date? Achar Sva ( talk) 22:09, 24 November 2022 (UTC)
... isn't about Darius the Mede, but about Darius I. Source: Schuster, Ruth (1 March 2023). "Inscription Naming Persian King Darius, Father of King Ahasuerus, Discovered in Southern Israel". Haaretz.com. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
Criticism of the inscription: On the Unprovenanced "Darius Inscription" on YouTube. tgeorgescu ( talk) 21:43, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
It's a FAKE: The Unprovenanced "Darius Inscription" is Not Authentic on YouTube tgeorgescu ( talk) 16:25, 3 March 2023 (UTC)