 If you love juicy debates, well, consider hitting that subscribe button as we have many more to come and also down below in the description box, whether you are listening via YouTube or via modern day debate on podcast, all of our guests are linked and we encourage you to check out our guest links as we really do appreciate them being with us. Thank you, James. All right, with that, we're going to have the affirmative side in this case, the one's claiming it is prophecy. The Christian side to go first with that Jonathan Sheffield, I understand that you'll be going first. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. We can just bring up my slides and then as soon as I start, if you can start to count. Sure thing. But bring up the slides, Jonathan, and your 20 minutes begins at your first word. Profer is the first recorded critic of the book of Daniel. According to Jerome, Profer wrote his 12th book against the prophecy of Daniel, denying that it was composed by the person ascribed in its title. Instead, he asserted that it was penned by an unnamed individual living in Judea at the time of Antiochus. Profer went on to allege that Daniel did not foretell the future so much as he relayed the past. Finally, he asserted that whatever the author spoke of up until the time of Antiochus contained authentic history, whereas anything he may have conjectured beyond that point was false, as he would not have foreknown the future. By way of rejoinder, we can empirically test Profer's allegations by walking through the legal framework to identify and date textual artifacts from antiquity. Therefore, in building our case for the traditional 6th century BC dating of Daniel, let us factor in the following empirical observations. First, the process whereby a common text comes into being is the byproduct of a certain individual or group of individuals at a certain time in a certain place. Second, in the ancient world, the physical formation, distribution, and transmission of a common text resulted in lasting echoes of extrinsic evidence. Given the book of Daniel that is common among the Jews was not created ex-Nilo, it would naturally leave behind archival fingerprints that we can examine. For in a similar manner, we come to knowledge of another textual work of antiquity of the same period. The production of the Homeric text under the Archon of Athens's Pizzastratus elicited subsequent reports by Diagnostrax, Cicero, and others of the text formation and distribution throughout Athenian society, thus enabling us to trace the publication back to its 6th century BC origin. This showcases how even at this early point in history, material traces of such endeavors were meticulously recorded. As to the ascertainment of authorship for a common text, the great Bishop of Hippo, Augustine demonstrates the procedural precedent employed among the ancients. He states, how do we know the authorship of the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Varro, and other similar writers? How is the authorship ascertained in each case, except by the author having brought his work into public notice as much as possible during his own lifetime? And where is evidence for the fact to be found, but in the information possessed by some at the time, and then transmitted by them through successive generations, even to distant times? If we apply Augustine's historically relevant criterion to the book of Daniel, we will see that the self-same investigative principles will provide the threads of evidence pointing us back to Daniel as the rightful author. According to the first element to our investigation, we ask, is there evidence of an esteemed figure named Daniel by the 6th century BC that is consistent with the figure mentioned in the book of Daniel? Yes, a person of interest has been identified, Ezekiel, a contemporary of the period situated in Babylon, refers to a person known as Daniel on three separate occasions, along with two known prophets in the Jewish canon. Now the works of Josephius are of great importance for the ensuing part of our investigation, because he wrote about two precise areas from which we seek information, the Jewish histories and its canon. Towards the conclusion of the antiquities, Josephius asserts that in writing this work, he performed a great feat that no one, whether they be Jew or Gentile, could emulate of issuing so accurate a treatise for the Greek world. First, it is crucial to be mindful of the fact that when Josephius was about to write the history of the Jews, he was not only obliged to look for information dealing with the events of his own native country, but also have regard to such sources as had the general affairs of the Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Syrian and Roman empires for their object. Josephius impressed upon his readers that the antiquities were written for a Greek and Roman audience, which subjects his reports to criticism among the ruling class. As Dr. Carrier has stated, the masses were often gullible, yet educated or reading books like Josephius typically were not. Second, Josephius prided himself on the accuracy of his Histographia, boldly claiming that the Greeks and Romans would not find a more accurate account of the Jewish histories than in his works. Josephius reminded his readers that his recounting of the Jewish War had received the approval of Titus' Investigation, and that he regularly conferred with Julius Archaelus, Herod and a grip of the second, all men who had borne testimony that Josephius had demonstrated the strictest regard for the truth. In the modern day, even Dr. Richard Carrier recognizes that a lot of Josephius's history checks out, and it has cooperation and reliable sourcing. He also notes that Josephius names and describes the merits of numerous sources for his histories, and mentions some of the reliable written sources that he used, such as Nicholas of Damascus, a reputable court historian, and friend of Herod the Great. In Book 1 against Apean, Josephius provides historically significant testimony certifying that the Jewish canon was closed by 424 BC. He numbers the Book of Daniel among its contents, emphasizing the prophets recorded the events in their own period, not after. Furthermore, Josephius confirms that authoritative writings cease since the reign of Arcee Xerces, and how firmly the Jewish nation has given credit to its canon is evident by its actions. For during the passage of so many ages, no one has been so bold as to add or take anything away from it. If the Jews were so inclined to add a work to their canon after the time of Arcee Xerces, it would have been strange to publish a seemingly insignificant account of an interpreter of dreams. Instead, any addition would have certainly involved the history of the Maccabees, portraying their epic struggle against the Secludians, that marked one of the most important military campaigns since the time of David. Despite the importance of the event, which is still commemorated during Hanukkah, this was never added to the Jewish canon, whereas it was included in the Septuagint demonstrating evidence of the unchanging legitimacy of the Jewish canon. Moreover, Josephius surveyed the publication since the time of Arcee Xerces, but reported those writings were unworthy of equal credit with the earlier records, because there has not been an exact succession of the prophets since that time. A report cooperated by Jerome from the Jews during his translation of the Hebrew canon into Latin. Therefore, any new works from that period would have been precluded. Additionally, Orthodox Jews would have considered it blasphemy to alter their canon after the reign of Arcee Xerces by virtue of their superstition. They believed the Holy Spirit was withdrawn after the last prophets of Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. A belief witnessed throughout rabbinic literature inside and outside the Talmud, demonstrating widespread belief, not private opinion. Evidence of exceptional consequence is also found in Josephius' antiquities, which detail the public presentation of Daniel in 332 to the Macedonian King Alexander. The meeting is cooperated on a vast number of fronts, in the Jewish scroll of fasting, Babylonian Talmud, pseudo-calentices, and the writings of Origen and Eusebius. Not only does Josephius' report fits the historical conditions of the period, but it also presents the simplest explanation as to why Alexander did not take Jerusalem. Just as Josephius' report of Cyrus' reading of Isaiah explains why the Jews were spared and allowed to rebuild their temple and city walls. For the record, Arion confirms that the area known as Syrian Palestine, that is Israel, not accepted Alexander's control, and elsewhere, Alexander speaking before his men at Opus enumerated Palestine among the areas that he secured tribute from. Evidence a deal had been reached with the Jews. Further evidence of this kind is found in Josephius' citation of Hectepheus of Adepta, a contemporary of Alexander and Pratolome, who attest to Jews went as auxiliaries along with King Alexander. Another element cited in Josephius' record. Josephius' report that Alexander made haste to go up to Jerusalem from Gaza as previously promised due to the Jews' refusal to send auxiliaries and supplies for his siege of Tyre is consistent with the Roman historian's Rufus' record that Alexander at Gaza went out to those cities which had refused to submit to him. While Egypt presented Alexander with numerous splendors like the National Treasuries and the title of Pharaoh, what could the Jews, allies of the Persians, based in a strategic military high ground, give to King after denying his request to spare its capital? The answer is clear. Josephius affirms the book of Daniel was shown to him where Daniel declared that one of the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, and Alexander believed he was that person. Alexander would not have believed, would not have offended a God who he had felt predicted his victories. Arian and Plutarch attest that Alexander believed he was of divine origin, and his men even criticized him for adopting foreign gods. With that, I cede my time over to Dr. Boyce. And I'll start whenever he pulls up my slides as well, Samuel. Yeah, we'll pause the clock until that happens. All right. Right. So I'm going to pick up where Jonathan left off and look at the era of the time where some have alleged the book of Daniel would have been written in the middle parts of the second century. So let's take a look at the witnesses of that time. Would they have ever seen something like this take place? Let's consider first Maccabees at the beginning of this. Note what it says in chapter two, and there's this long section from verse 51 to 60, and I condensed it for time. He says, call to remembrance what acts of our fathers did in their time or literally in their days. He goes through this long list. He mentions Abraham and David all the way down to Elijah or Elias for being zealous and fervent for the law. He was taken up into heaven. And then he mentions four important figures, Ananias, Azarias, and Mishael, which is their Hebrew names. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego was their names given to them once they came to Babylon. By believing were saved out of the flame going to Daniel chapter three. Daniel for his innocence was delivered from the mouth of lions, the story of Daniel and the lion's den. So here's something that we need to understand about the Maccabees, which is around that time of the second century. They saw these four men as fathers who acted in this manner in their days, not as companions or contemporaries of their time in the Maccabean period, but rather these men existed at a specific period of time and they did these heroic acts. And they were seen equal to that of Elijah and David and Abraham. They were held in such high regard. Another section to consider in first Maccabees was this time in chapter nine when they're dealing with the great tribulation that was hitting them. They're fighting through this in the middle of war. It says this great tribulation in Israel, like of which has not been since the time of the prophets ceased to appear from among them. And this goes back to what Jonathan was saying in his presentation. The overall belief throughout was that the prophets had ceased at that very point it was at an end and later in first Maccabees chapter 14. And the Jews and their priests had consented that he, and this is Simon and Maccabees should be their prince and high priest forever until there should arise a faithful prophet. Once more again in the first Maccabees, they're not considering new revelation to be coming. They're not considering new prophecy to be coming. And so they would have seen anybody raising themselves up to be a prophet or to write on behalf of God or to be a part of a canonical collection. They would have rejected that in their day. And we have to understand the Maccabee family was that of the priesthood. These are the high priest times. And so they raised up Simon, one of the sons, to be not only the prince, but the high priest forever until there should arise a faithful prophet, which they believe was the one that would come promised by Malachi. And so they did not believe a prophet or risen. And if there was going to be any transmission of a text, they would have been knowing they would have been in the know, and they would have been a part of actually collecting that, which we'll see in a minute. Another one that needs to be considered is the Talmud, for example. The Talmud in two different sections, you have in the Amma one, nine. It says, Abbas said the refers of bath coal as we have taught in the following Maratha, with the death of the last prophets, Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi, the prophetic spirit was withdrawn from Israel. So here's the people of the time, the Jewish understanding of their heritage, writing commentary of what took place. And they recognize the spirit of prophecy was taken from Israel. And it ended at the time of the writings of Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi, which was in the return from exile. And then they said later, also in the Bavra, Batra and 15. And thus the book of Daniel, which was in exile. So here's something you need to recognize that Daniel was not just a historical figure to them. He was writing a book, which was in exile. And thus the scroll of Esther and the 12, which prophecies were minor, that would be the minor prophets, did not write it together. But rather, catch the phrase, each wrote their own books. So he's not only alleging here in the Talmud that Daniel wrote a book, but that he wrote his own book, that he was the author of that writing. And that Haggai, Zachariah and Malachi came and saw that the Holy Spirit was withdrawing, that they were the last prophet. So they have just a wealth of information here from Jewish heritage belief system spread out. You have Josephus, you have the Talmud, you have the Maccabeans. Recognizing the spirit of prophecy was gone. Later, after this time period, not far after in the book of Second Baruch, 85, you see this detested to as well. Further, note that our fathers in former times and former generations had helpers, righteous prophets of the Kadesh men. But now the righteous have been assembled and the prophets are sleeping. They recognize the prophets are no longer around. They are dead. They did not involve themselves in new works on behalf of the Holy Spirit. They believed in that closing of the canon. Also, consider Second Maccabees. I think this is important to understanding how in this time frame, a book would have been recognized, canonized or placed within a collection that they would have approved of either by commentary or canon. This family was duplicating what was done in the time of the exile and their return of the days of Nehemiah. Consider chapter two, verse 13. And these same things were set down in the memoirs and commentaries of Nehemiah and how he made a library and gathered together out of the country's the books, both the prophets, which they have already categorically placed, Daniel and David and the epistles of the kings concerning the Holy Gifts. And in like manner, Judas, this is Judas Maccabees, also gathered together all such things. So you have Judas Maccabees, who is a part of this priestly line in the middle of war, what would take place is there would be a collection of the books they would take these books in any commentaries. Lineages were very important when you read Ezra chapter two, when you're Nehemiah chapter seven, when you're looking at the books that they go into in the Old Testament in times of war or conflict, they're collecting their data from their canon and what they call scripture and prophets, any kind of lineages they can trace their bloodlines to, any commentaries of what took place of historicity, they collect them and put them together. And that's what they're saying Nehemiah did in the return of exile. And in like manner in times of war, during the Maccabean times, they, too, with Judas Maccabees gathered all of these same books, all such things, the prophets, David, the epistles of the kings and they collected anything they had so that they would not be lost because wartime usually produces destruction, burnings, and you lose what's happening. So if there were to be a book written in the middle of the second century, the Maccabean family would have been fully aware of it. And if they had alleged themselves to be a writer under the description of Daniel, they would have had to approve such a work into this collection of library where they were preserving in the time of war that which was spoken of in the prophets and David and the epistles of the kings, the Torah and all that they learned from their history and lineages. This would have been overly alarming to them because they would have seen it as an imposter. They would have called it out. The Jews nor the church have had any issue in history at calling out forgeries, recognizing mistakes, recognizing perversions. And so we see that here also consider once more Josephus as we've already heard. So it was said the temple was made desolous by Antiochus and continued for three years. And in this desolation came to pass according to the prophecy of Daniel, which was given four hundred and eight years before for he declared that some of the Macedonians would dissolve that worship for some time, and this is in the antiquities of the Jews. So Josephus recognized Daniel was a prophet. He had predicted these things four hundred and eight years before. He had already recognized the closing of the canon. That closing of the canon is consistent with the Talmud. It is consistent with first Maccabees. It's consistent with how canonization would have been recognized. It's consistent in second Maccabees looking at Judas Maccabees. And now he would have built this library like in the Nehemiah. He would have only allowed that which was accepted as prophecy, which they have already as a family established ended at the time of Malachi, ended at the time of Zachariah and Haggai. One last thing to consider in closing, two manuscripts in the Qumran family known recently to the name of Midrash Chavescatology, this is an interesting collection of those at Qumran in the 50 to 80 BC era in that time, 30 year frame, perhaps. They're looking for signs of the Messiah. They go through Deuteronomy 18. They look at 2nd Samuel 7, the Psalms of what they say about the Messiah, Hosea's prophecies and oddly enough, they mention also the book of Daniel in light of the resurrection up to this point. The prophecies have been received unto eleven chapters compiled within the fragments of Qumran. The 12th chapter is missing in the Qumran fragments, but not in the commentary section like this. In fact, you see a commentary of Daniel chapter 12 in relation to the coming Messiah and the resurrection. So they obviously had chapter 12. It was not some Greek tradition that brought in the mythology of resurrection. Rather, they were doing commentary of what was already existed. It ought to be noted that the phrasing in one of these fragments is this. It is written in the book of Daniel the prophet. What does that mean? What does that mean for us? What should we consider around the time of 50 to 80 BC? Those at Qumran and their scribes were not pending a new work or transmitting modern work. Rather, they were right. They were considering the book of Daniel a written text and that he was a prophet. This was not a contemporary work they were recognizing. They were continuing this transmission and giving it commentary equal to Deuteronomy 18's prophecy of Messiah. 2nd Samuel 7, Psalms and Hosea and other works like Isaiah. They were considering Daniel's work equal to its validation of prophecy of Messiah's coming and we find that in this little bit of fragment we have left of the commentary of the midrash of eschatology and time. Thank you for that, Dr. Stephen Boyce and Jonathan Sheffield. You guys ate into the additional one minute. So with that, thank you very much for your opening statements. We go over to the the atheist side, Dr. Josh Bowen and Jim Majes. You would have 20 minutes as well in your opening statement. I'll give you a little bit of time in the transition between the first and second speaker and like they did, you would have an additional one minute if you do cross time. So your time, your 20 minutes starts at your first word. All right. Well, I will start and get my stuff out of the way because Jim is the real expert here. Um, the dating of the book of Daniel is one of the battleground topics for many Christians and apologists. The book purports to be written by Daniel in the sixth century, BCE, and predicts events from the following centuries. The consensus of biblical scholars today, however, is that the book was not composed in the sixth century, but was compiled in a much later date in the second century BCE. Here, I will focus on three points that strongly suggest the late date of writing, vague and sometimes inaccurate early historical events, specific and accurate later events, and the final kingdom as presented in the book, Greece. The overall argument that I will make is as follows. Descriptions of earlier events tend to be more vague and to contain historical inaccuracies. Conversely, the later events are described in much greater detail and accuracy. This fits well with a second century composition of the book. Finally, the visions of chapter seven, eight, nine and 10 through 12 vary in specificity, but all describe the final earthly kingdom as Greece, stated specifically in two of the visions. If the kingdom of Greece is the final kingdom to exist before the coming kingdom of God, this strongly indicates that the visions were not predicting some time in the distant future, but rather that the end would come in the second century BCE. This accords well with a second century writing. Let's begin by briefly covering some of the early historical problems with the book. For most of the following issues, apologists have argued with for possible solutions, however unlikely they may be. Often, however, we are simply left with, well, isn't it possible that? First, Daniel reports the siege of Jerusalem in Jehoiakim's third year, which would be 606 or 605, an event for which we have no evidence, which we would expect to see in the Babylonian Chronicle. Second, scholars agree that the madness of Nebuchadnezzar is the result of attributing a tradition about Nabanitis, the crazy king who spent 10 years away from Babylonia to Nebuchadnezzar. This is supported by the text from Qumran, the prayer of Nabanitis, which parallels the story about Nebuchadnezzar. Third, the figure of Belshazzar, son of Nebuchadnezzar, presents numerous problems. For example, he was not Nebuchadnezzar's son and he was not in command when Babylonia fell to Cyrus. Finally, I will mention Darius the Mead, a ruler for which we have no historical evidence. Not only is there no evidence, but we actually know who was rolling at the time when Darius was said to have been in power. In short, from the from the period in which Daniel was purported to have lived, he got many of the historical details wrong. However, in Daniel 11, we see that details from the later period, the third and second centuries BCE, were far more specific and accurate. Following a description of Alexander the Great and the Deaticoi, we see in verses five through eight, the king of the south will become strong, but one of his commanders will become even stronger and he will rule his own kingdom with great power. After some years, they will become allies. The daughter of the king of the south will go to the king of the north to make an alliance, but she will not retain her power and he and his power will not last. In those days, she wise and take her place. He will attack the forces of the king of the north and enter his fortress. He will fight against them and be victorious. He will also seize their gods, their metal images and their valuable articles of silver and gold and carry them off to Egypt. For some years, he will leave the king of the north alone. The events described here are those concerning Ptolemy the first and Salucas the first. The latter joined the former as a general to fight off Antigonus. However, after Antigonus died in 301, Salucas the first became more powerful and Ptolemy the first. About 50 years later, Ptolemy the second attempted to reconcile with the Salucas by marrying off Baranis to Antiochus the second. However, this ultimately backfired in Baranis, her son, her Egyptian servants and her father all died. Baranis's brother, Ptolemy the third, attacked Antiochus the second and carried off Plunder. There was then two years without conflict between the Ptolemies and the Salucas. From these verses alone, you can see that the events describing the second and third and second centuries just before the book is agreed to have been compiled are far more detailed and accurate. Finally, the earthly kingdom described in chapters seven, eight and ten to twelve is Greece. The text anticipates that during the time of the Greek Empire, under a ruler that will bring about desolations, removal of the daily sacrifice and utter turmoil to the people, the end would come. Ushering in the reign of God's heavenly kingdom. This, of course, fits perfectly with not only a second century composition of Daniel, but with the overall purpose of the book. As an apocalyptic text, its goal is to explain the evil in the world and to encourage the faithful to remain so for just a little while longer, as deliverance was just around the corner. In conclusion, I would like to illustrate what I consider to be a fundamental problem in the debate on the dating of Daniel. Beginning with a conclusion. In the publication of his dissertation, Stephen Anderson, not that Stephen Anderson, writes, quote, most importantly, Daniel was a prophet who wrote infallibly under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, whereas extra biblical sources for the life of Cyrus are ordinary human writings. Since God was speaking through Daniel as he wrote, the book of Daniel is not to be viewed as an account of uncertain trustworthiness, whose veracity is to be judged by other data, but rather must be the standard by which all other accounts are measured, end quote. Concerning this type of fundamentalist approach, which is often mirrored in many aspects in Christian apologetics, Lester Graber writes, quote, fundamentalism has already determined its conclusions. It is not seeking because it already knows the answer. If it has good evidence on its side, which supports the Bible, it uses it. If it has little data, it twists and interprets what it has to support the Bible. If it has no evidence, it hypothesizes that such will eventually be found. And of course, no amount of contrary evidence is sufficient. Fundamentalism can never conclude that the Bible is wrong. With that, I turn it over to Jim. Awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Josh. Awesome. Thanks for breaking that ice. So as Dr. Jarse, when it comes to the highly contested origins of the book of Daniel, there are two major views. You have the traditionalist view or the conservative view and the critical scholar view or the liberal view. The traditionalist view regarding the dating of Daniel is the same as that, which the book seems to claim that it is a sixth century B.C. text written by an exiled Jewish official in Babylon, who is predicting events that are not fulfilled until the second century B.C. and later. The critical scholars view nearly unanimously held by scholars who studied the book of Daniel, widely view the book of Daniel as a redacted compilation of a collection of early court tales from the late Persian and early Hellenistic period. This would be chapters one through six in the book of Daniel that you know today and later editions of visions that were written in the second century B.C. which you would know as chapter seven through 12, the second half. Most critical scholars see the book of Daniel as a text that came about to encourage Jews under Antiochian persecution during the second century B.C. to help them and encourage them to continue being faithful to their God and to obey their their traditional rules and uphold their traditional values, despite the pressure to assimilate to a more Hellenized form of Judaism. This period of Hellenization in the region began with the conquest of Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C. and the Hellenization spread until much past the second century B.C. But second century B.C. you could see that Hellenization was at its height in the history of Judaism. Many traditionalists, mainly Christian apologists, often accused critical scholars of taking a naturalistic approach to their dating methods and claiming supernatural occurrences such as divinely delivered prophecy to be impossible. And if you've heard that, then hear this. Critical scholars are allowed to believe in supernatural. This may seem like a shocker, but while many scholars don't believe the supernatural exist, many do. However, critical scholars in the field, fields such as history and archaeology, whether a believer or not, use methodology that relies on an unbiased view of culture and religion and makes no assumption as to the validity of supernatural elements of their subjects of study. So many critical scholars are simply believers who have set aside their theological presuppositions and approached the text like they would any other. If critical scholars, even believers, were to take Daniel to be completely true at face value, they'd had to accept his truth, the writings of every other alleged prophet, seer and oracle, regardless of the faith. And as you can imagine, this could lead to more than a few difficulties. When critical scholars analyze the book of Daniel from an unbiased perspective, including many of those who hold a personal belief in divine prophecy, they do not see a sixth century text that's accurately predicting the next twenty five hundred plus years. They see a second century redaction of second, third, fourth and fifth century BCE texts that poorly predicts the next few years. This is a position that is reached by first examining the history, the the historical, then the theological and then the literary nature of the book of Daniel. In other words, it is a conclusion that is come to by examining the evidence and it's not an assumption made before doing so. One such person that does this is the late Robert Henry Pfeiffer, a Protestant Bible scholar and a seriologist who taught at Harvard University from 1922 after serving as a Methodist minister from 1916 to 1919. And in his introduction to the Old Testament, one of the the greatest commentaries of the early 20th century in his commentary on the book of Daniel, he writes, quote, historical research can deal only with authenticated facts which are within the sphere of natural possibilities and must refrain from from vouching for the truth of supernatural events. In quote, when critical scholars analyze the book of Daniel, they think to themselves if this text was authored in the sixth century BCE, we would expect that the historical content of the text would support that claim. You would expect that a a an author, the author, if the author Daniel was writing during the Babylonian exile or shortly thereafter that he would be aware of cultural and political happenings in the area, but that's not at all the case. Traditionalists claim that the book of Daniel was written by a Jew who personally witnessed and experienced the fall of Jerusalem, life under a neo-Babylonian rule and the fall of the neo-Babylonian empire. But as Dr. Josh has already pointed out, it's clear that the author doesn't know who the king of Jerusalem was when it fell, Johoi Chen, not Johoi Kim, who the king of Babylon was when Babylon fell, Nabonitis, not Belshazzar, who the kings between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonitis are. Daniel doesn't seem to know of Amel Marduk, the son of Nebuchadnezzar, Nareg Lissar, Labashi Marduk. And he doesn't seem to know when Jerusalem fell. It was in 598 BCE, not 606 or 605. And he doesn't seem to know when Babylon fell because he doesn't even know who Babylon fell to, the event that would be closest to the time of the alleged authorship in the sixth century. So if the traditionalist view is correct, then these are all events and people that the author of Daniel would know, yet we see the author constantly and consistently making mistakes when talking about his own life in exile. He can't tell you common facts about the sixth century world that he lives in, but some people believe that he can predict the future. When it comes to prophecy, prophecy is not just a prediction of history. It is it is not exevent to prophecy is it had a present meaning for those people in the context that it's presented in for the for the audience that it is delivered to, not just to somebody thousands of years later. Prophecy's main component is its predictive power. Daniel is supposed to be a prophecy of Jesus coming back thousands of years later, according to most Christians. But for some reason, the author of Daniel isn't aware of any kingdom after Greece. Doesn't make sense. We do not have any evidence outside of the Bible of a deportation which took place during the third year of Jehoiakim, which was in 607, 606. The first capture of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, the second was in 598 or 597. And like I said, it was during the reign of the son of Jehoiakim, Jehoiakim. So this is something that Daniel would have been present for, you know, whenever Jerusalem was taken over, this would be a huge memory as a young man as a teenager, you know, the city being invaded. It's highly unlikely that he would forget who the king was. Many Canadian documents have been found in catalog that are dated to the beginning of the Babylonian exile. And and beyond and I'm sorry, and later than that. And there's even one mentioning the name of Jehoiakim that's internally dated to 592 B.C.E. All these tablets, over 100, showed Jehoiakim continued to be regarded as the legitimate king of Judah. He was given special treatment, reflecting his position while he was in captivity, such as like eating with the king or eating the king's food, not only by Nebuchadnezzar, but by his successors as well. And you can also see that in 2 Kings 25 verse 27 through 30 and in Jeremiah 52 verses 31 through 34. It's clear that Daniel is talking about Antiochus, it's what everything is boiling down to all these historical points and at Antiochus, such as the little horn in Daniel eight, nine. It says that that talks about the the host being given over and together with the regular burnt offering and that there the the regular burnt offering that there would be a transgression that would would make it desolate that would be that would force the sanctuary to be given over and the host to be trampled. And it says for two thousand three hundred evenings and mornings, the sanctuary shall be restored to its rightful state. Well, first Maccabees, second Maccabees, I mean, there are so many texts that talk about Antiochus doing this. Josephus even Josephus says Antiochus the fourth built an alt and idle altar on God's altar and slews swine on it that he sacrificed pigs on it, which will most certainly make a Jewish altar desolate and the erection of the idle altar. Whenever you see references to abominations in the Old Testament, they can nearly always be understood as heathen gods, idols depicting heathen gods, offerings to heathen gods or anything associated with the worship of foreign gods was called an abomination. Daniel nine, the seventy weeks, which is the prophecy that I think we're going to end up though that I thought was going to be on everybody's mind. Coming into this to quote George Peters, a Lutheran minister, he said, it has been well observed by various writers that if the seventy weeks are to end with the death of Christ and the incoming destruction of Jerusalem, it is simply impossible with all ingenuity expended in this direction by eminent men to make out an accurate fulfillment of prophecy from the dates given for the time usually adduced being either too long to fit with the crucifixion of Christ or too short to extend to the destruction of Jerusalem. In Jewish eschatology, the end days had certain events that were to transpire. God was to redeem the Jewish people from their captivity, a second exodus, if you will, God was to return them back to their homeland of Israel. He was to restore the House of David and rebuild the temple. He was to create a ruler on earth, a regent, a of a co-regent of God, if you will, from the House of David that was understood as a messiah to lead these to leave the Jews into a new age, into a messianic age and an age of minutes. OK, thank you. That all nations would recognize that the God of Israel is the only God. And come to worship it and that God would resurrect the dead. And then he would create this new heaven and a new earth. Or if there was any variation in any of those amongst the Jewish, the Jewish sects, it was it was very few. But most this is this is how what the standard Jewish eschatology looked like as far as the end of days. And Daniel 9, you have a prophecy that is broken down. That says going forth the word to to restore and build. And then seven weeks. So you have one period of seven weeks. You have a period of sixty two weeks, time of trouble when the city is supposed to be rebuilt. And one minute, there's supposed to be a coming of an anointed ruler. And finally, in the third, you have a cutting off of an anointed one. And the this this ruler, his forces decelerating the city and this ruler making a pact with the many. And then you have another half a week. And then you have a a a stop that has come to the offering because of an abomination of desolation that is installed in the sanctuary. Then another half week and then decreed to the coming ruler and into sin. And Jerusalem's desolations and the eternal righteousness. Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. So there's clearly two different anointed ones here. And there are sixty two weeks or four hundred and thirty four years apart. Daniel's interest in this prophecy is clearly focused on this last division, specifically this last half of the 70 weeks of years. And like Dr. Josh said, the message essentially is that the end of their suffering is near, that the time that's left is nothing compared to the time that's already passed. So the decrees coming soon, they'll be all right. And they don't nine twenty five, it speaks of a decree being issued. And that's it's clearly the the the edict of Cyrus, which allowed the temple to be to be rebuilt. Thirty seconds. How many? Thirty seconds left. This is in your extra time. Oh, OK. But essentially, there's no reason, no justification for ignoring these clear divisions, Christian interpreters avoid having to do identify them separately. And they do this by combining the first period of seven weeks with the second period of sixty two weeks. And there's many problems with that. But yeah, long story short, Daniel was written in the second century B.C.E. And used older four, fifth, sixth century texts to make up the first six chapters. And with that, I give whatever seconds I have. Now, you crossed it by two seconds. OK, sorry. Sorry. No, that's all right. I think the both thank you very much. I think that's the first time I've used all of my time for an opening statement. Well, I'm really grateful to both you, Jim, and also to Dr. Josh for your opening statements as well. And yes, the fact that both sides used both of the extra time as well. I'm glad we had that one minute extra time. We won't be doing that in the rebuttal period, though. So now we go to the rebuttal period. And we both sides have 10 minutes each between the two speakers to respond to what the other side said in the opening statement. And I will highly, highly ask both sides that you would kindly respond to what the other side said in the opening statements and not maybe something else outside of them. So with that to the Christian side, Dr. Stephen Boyce and Jonathan Sheffield, your 10 minute starts at your first word. OK, so I'm probably going to address three points that came from Dr. Josh and Mr. Majors. First, I want to bring up their appeal to the consensus or their appeal to the critical scholarship. Now, despite that, we provided ample evidence from Josephus and other historians weighing in favor of a sixth century BC dating. We are up against a worldview or this consensus, which is sort of this Enlightenment year worldview that is dismissive of the Jewish histories. Now, Josephus was plagued by a related situation in his day because the prototype of this worldview that we're coming up against today with the consensus actually originated with those Greeks who felt that the Jewish histories weren't worthy for consideration and thereby did not believe Josephus's former accounts of the very ancient age of the Jewish nation. Josephus reported that he cannot greatly wonder at those men who suppose that we must attend to none but Greeks when we're acquiring about the most ancient facts and must inform ourselves of their truth and from them only while we must not believe ourselves or other men. For it's an absurd thing for the Greeks to want themselves to be the only people that are acquainted with antiquity and have delivered the true accounts of those early times in face of such a worldview. Josephus stated that he would not be led by vain opinions, but will make inquiry after truth from the facts themselves. And this is what we're trying to do as well. Now, Dr. Josh did bring up about Darius, the mead he did want to he did bring some attention to it. So once again, we do have an account from Daniel that does cite a person as Darius. OK, now we also have cooperation from Josephus. We do have an ancient historian that was published in an anti-Jewish time that basically said, but when Babylon was taken by Darius and when he with his kings and Cyrus had put an end to the dominion of the Babylonians. He was 62 years old. He was the son of our staries and had another name among the Greeks. So we do have an ancient historian that had access to the sources who was publishing in an anti-Jewish time that made this claim, which is important. Now, another thing that Mr. Majors had brought up is regarding the Joe Kim, Joe Chen. Hopefully that's correct, Mr. Majors. But Jerome already addressed this in his response to proffer in the fourth century. And what Jerome says is, let no one therefore imagine that the Joe Kim in the beginning of Daniel is the same person as the one who was spelled Joe Chen in the commencement is Ezekiel. For the latter has Chen as his final syllable, whereas the former has Kim. As is for this reason and the Gospel according to Matthew, there seems to be a generation missing because of the second group of 14 extending to the job time of Joe Ken and with the son of Joe Isaiah. And the third group begins with Joe Chen. The son of Joe Kim being ignorant of this fact. Proffer formulated slander against the church, which only revealed his ignorance. And another thing that we do need to address is the historicity question. Now, one of the points that Jerome is relaying from proffer's argument and proffer was being educated at Athens, the student of Polonius. He was well acquainted with the history. But one of the things that he said is proffer wasn't didn't really have any issues with the historicity. Someone who was from Tyre educated at Athens did not make all these historical said that there was problems with the history for the most parts. Proffer, according to Jerome, said the history up until the time was correct. It's anything afterwards this period was conjured up. So with that part, I would like to cede my remaining time to Dr. Boyce. Tell me when, Samuel. Yeah, as soon as you can go in now. Yeah, OK, to kind of go into some of what Jonathan had said. And I really appreciate the time and demonstrations by both Jim and Josh. It's really good. I actually enjoyed Jim. I learned some things of your arguments. I actually never heard on the other end admit. So I found that interesting, but I find that you try to be fair, too. So I appreciate the list there. One thing that Dr. Josh brought up that I would address as well as you mentioned that the conservative or fundamentalists and their base of their presupposition forces them to twist and make things true that are false and false that are true. And I think that we would all agree that that criteria exists. And that type of thinking does exist in the Christian world. And I think that Jonathan and myself would greatly oppose that consistency of just make it true because you want it to be true thinking. I don't think that's how we examine anything. I know that one of the things that there is a push in Christian scholarship is to leave as many presuppositions at home. One of the statements made with Dr. Majors as well was that critical scholars have unbiased opinion and their historicity. I don't know of any scholar that has some level or has no level of bias at all. We all have some level of bias. We all go into it with a worldview. We all go into it with a bias. We want to and try to and make it a practice to leave our biasnesses at the door, but even in that process, we all have a worldview. We just can't leave at the door. So I would say that there is no argument that makes one or the other right on the basis of presuppositions. We all have them, but I will say this. I appreciate both in critical scholarship, liberal and conservative scholarship, that there is a push in this generation that speaking today to get to the bottom of the truth and find the source of truth, whether that be through the scripture, historical arguments, archaeological discoveries, history, history and its lineages and giving us the words that we're talking about today. It's a blessing. We have more information in this group than most generations have ever had before, and I think we should use that wisely. Going into this idea of consensus with that being said, the consensus always changes and I'm only 31 years old and I know that when it comes to consensus on little small things, even in scholarship amongst Christian communities or even the unbelieving world, the atheistic world, whatever you want to label, the consensus changes regularly. The consensus of scholarship at the earliest points, which has been in the demonstration of Jonathan and myself, the consensus was settled and unwavered, including to places where pro for was involved in this. He's the only one that went against consensus at his time. But as Jonathan demonstrated, his issue is not with the historicity. But rather with the text, you had different ideas coming in Bell and Dragon. You had the songs of the Jewish boys, you had Susanna, these different stories coming in, he was fighting the Theodosian text. And so when Jerome was combating him, he was looking at it from that perspective. So even though he opposed the timing of Daniel based on really linguistics, the text that he was doing it from was not the text that we are arguing from today. He was using a Theodosian text and Jerome had combated him. And you see this did as well. Unfortunately, we don't have his volumes that dealt with that. Now, one of the interesting things that I would point out with the discussion is what we're talking about first, second Maccabees. For example, Jim, Dr. Jim brought up first, second Maccabees. Though there are things there with Antiochus that are mentioned, they have set also in those same books, the criteria for acceptance. This was the family that was really canonizing a collection of the canonizing sections through their high priestly positions to the point where Simon was given the rule of Prince and High Priest forever till profit would come and that they had collected in the like manner of Nehemiah, these books, they too would have considered any biblical text of writing that came into the equation, anything that was done under the name of prophecy would have gone through their jurisdiction. They rather placed Daniel in his writings at a later time in an ancient time of the fathers, but not allowed it to be a part of their day. They did not see it as temporary. So when we're talking about Darius, there are possibilities. Xenophon or whether we're talking about Josephus's opinion, they had guys that they marked that they assumed would have been this guy under different names under different aliases or whatever that may be, the key that we're looking for in the middle of the second century would be where are the potential candidates who could have written a book like this or collected older texts in the first six chapters, brought in modern ideas, Hellenistic worldviews, compiled this text, put it into circulation without the acknowledgement of those who are in charge, the Maccabean family. These men had no knowledge of time. We see that when we come to Qumran, we end up in the same situation. The scholars at Qumran were completely all right. We're going to call time on this one, Steven. Unfortunately, I hate to cut you off. But the time we've crossed, crossed time by about 10 seconds. So with that, so really sorry about that. And we will be moving over to the eighties side for your cross for your rebuttal period, your 10 minute rebuttal period. And because the Christian side did cross by 10 seconds, I'll give you guys the additional 10 seconds for that. So with that, we will begin at your first word. OK, do you want me to start, Dr. Drush? Yeah, you you have much more to say than I do. So first thing, you know, the debates about, you know, prophecy versus forgery, and while I believe that forgery is a strong word, prophecy is clearly the the the claim. But what does Daniel predict that isn't already in other canonical texts? That's that would be my question. And the early comparison by Jonathan to the Homeric text, I would say that they aren't the same genre as Daniel, you know, epics aren't the same thing as apocalypses. Oh, sorry, I meant to thank Jonathan and and Dr. Steven Boyce so much for your introduction and your kind words. I appreciate that. So when talking about Josephus, that that's one thing that I definitely want to point out. I don't know. I can't remember who mentioned it, but Josephus, you know, mentions Alexander the Great and Alexander the Great coming to Jerusalem and it says that he's being met by Judea, a high priest. But the Talmud, you know, it presents a little differently. It says that he was met by Simeon the Just, the who would be the grandson of Judea, also a high priest in a town about 40 miles northwest. So that's found on that kind of kind of funny. Jerome addressing Johoi Keem. Jerome says that it's a it's a code, this this Jechinias. But he's only reading the the the Greek and the Latin. That's that's that's that's all that he's using. You know, you don't have those those those difficulties. One of your you're reading Daniel and in regardless that that's not even if it was a code that that still doesn't fix any of the difficulties. Biases are not preventable, but certain presuppositions are preventable. The canon was definitely not closed by 424 BCE. And as far as the Maccabees gathering the text, the one who gathered them was Judas Maccabees and it was done in about 167 BCE. And there's no reason why the Maccabees would be against the Book of Daniel, because it completely supported their cause. And the the the the Maccabees were were were the the force against Hellenization of Judaism. They would have definitely used it. In fact, in my dissertation, one of my my main theory and theory that that's that I don't think would be is going to be rejected by very many Daniel scholars is that it was compiled for the purpose of encouraging not only hope and and and and and some sort of something to look forward to by Jews under anti-Kina persecution, but to also build and and bolster this this rebellion against the the Hellenization of Jerusalem, against, you know, allowing the the Jewish children to go to the gymnasium and to be seen naked and to Jewish men attempting to reverse their circumcisions or not getting circumcised at all, not circumcising their their male children, you know, offering libations to a foreign god. You know, this was something that was happening and something that was encouraged at the time, you know, everything that is in the Book of Daniel, like in chapters eight and chapters 11 and chapter nine, all these these references are like Dr. Josh said, the closer that it gets to the second century towards the time of the the solution period, they the more accurate that it gets. And as you get back through the Hellenistic and into the Persian and Babylonian periods, it gets much less accurate. So I mean, I just would like some sort of explanation for why Daniel, if a sixth century B.C. author, why he doesn't know what is going on in the sixth century B.C. The most inarguably important and most impactful events of his life. Dr. Josh. Yeah, I mean, you can you can keep going. So I mean, so that it's clear, like late second Temple of Judaism and obviously first, second, third, fourth century C.E. is like not my expertise. So, you know, much more of what I would feel comfortable talking about would be actual historical problems that occur in the book itself. But yeah, I mean, I think I'm not supposed to talk about what was said in the rebuttal. So I think, again, Josephus is not my expertise and I'll stop after this and see the rest of my time back to Jim, but like I just wrote a book on I'm one of the chapters on the book of Daniel. And I say in the chapter, like I'm getting ready to go into stuff that's not my field of expertise, but here I'm going to cite reputable scholars because this is what the book is all about. And I cite Peake and Green and I think Goldstein, who all talk about this this thing that both Jim and Jonathan refer to with Alexander supposedly coming to to Jerusalem. And essentially, I mean, it's it's like there's just no question about this from a historical standpoint. You know, Josephus is known again amongst the scholars in the field, it appears that the earlier you go back with him, the more that he's relying on sources that maybe aren't reliable. And then, of course, when you get into the first century into his into his time, it gets more reliable. So I think taking Josephus sort of on the whole for any historian, I think his ancient historian is problematic. Any historian is problematic. But again, not my not my field of expertise. So, Jim, if you had a couple more things you want to talk about, that's oh, no, I would. Yeah, I kind of just blew over the whole how unreliable Josephus was seen by his not only his his contemporaries, but later, you know, later people who even historiographers, you know, whenever they're studying these ancient historians and their texts, you know, they, you know, the Josephus is right up there in like the top 10 of like most unreliable. But yeah, other other than that, I mean, that's really just that's about it. Certainly the rest of my time to, I guess, the Q&A, because we really don't need any more time anywhere else, I don't think. Right. Thank you for that, Dr. Josh and Jim for that. Now we are done with the rebuttal period. We are going to go to the cross-examinations and we'll begin with our Christian side. Menuhu will be going first for the cross-examination. Who rather will be cross-examining the cross-examining the other side? Is it Steven or Jonathan? You're muted, Jonathan. Oh, I apologize. I guess I can go first with my questions. And I think for Dr. Josh, you're a doctor major since you're basically almost there. Oh, no, no, not yet, not yet. Shall I start the time now, Jonathan? Yeah, give me one second. I was just going to ask them. Would you prefer me just to address a question and whoever wants to pick it up answer or would you prefer me just to ask individually? Which would you prefer, Dr. Josh, if I don't know what I'm going to say, Jim, go for it. OK, fair enough. Right. And by the way, Jonathan, it's your time. You get to decide how you want to go about it. Yeah. OK, sounds good. All right. Your time begins at your first word, Jonathan. OK, if historical accuracy is a measure, we are applying to discredit the traditional date and authorship of Daniel. Why wouldn't this measure also apply to Herodotus, Stonius, Plutarch, or even Joseph Smith? In those cases, no one doubts that they were the authors of the work or the time when they wrote it. So why would we with Daniel? Well, on the chamber. So there are certain aspects of each of those that are questioned, whether it's the place, the people that are mentioned. I mean, so why can't Daniel be questioned about what time that it's being purported to have been written in? You know, we wouldn't take Herodotus at his word for for some of his texts, just like we wouldn't take Homer at his word for for some of his texts. But both can be relied on as. I mean, in certain ways that they are reliable, but can't be said to be reliable in the information that they transmit on the surface. Is that makes sense? Yeah, no, no, that makes sense. Next question, since forge work or any publication requires a forger, can you provide any written source from the ancient world, identifying a person of interest or a suspect for your Maccabeean hypothesis? Given that, Josephius stated that there was a full history of the time that was available and which is still available today. I would say that it's only by a stroke of pure luck that we even have porphyries and it's only because it's preserved in the the writings of Jerome's commentary on the book of Daniel. Many books that were that that that provided contrary views to the what was considered, you know, Christian Judaism or later Christianity was burned starting in about the fourth century, either burned or banned. So I mean, it's just it's just because that's only when it survives. I don't think that's that constitutes coming to the conclusion that there are no other contemporary disagreements with it. Now, since Plutarch and Arion composed histories of Alexander after Josephius's publication of the antiquities and wrote it at a time that was hostile to the Jews, given the war Hadrian was in 132, which would have welcomed a reputation of Josephius's account of the Jews and Alexander. Why don't we have a counter narrative published in the ancient world from these historians or the families of the Ptolemies that were still around in Egypt or the Secludians if the report was propaganda? Are you talking about the book of Daniel? Well, I'm talking about Josephius. Yeah, Josephius's account of Alexander and the Jews or the Jews presentation of the book of Daniel to Alexander. Plutarch and Arion wrote afterwards. They were writing at a very anti-Jewish time. They were they were court historians. It would have made it would have served them well, reputedating Josephius. If this report is just if it was attacked on a number of things, but in this account was widespread. So why don't we have any of the reports from the people that, you know, the descendants of Alexander, the Ptolemies, the Secludians? Why don't we have any reports from them who were descendants that said, hey, this is propaganda. This is crazy. What they're saying. Well, I don't know about just coming out and saying straight out propaganda just because I don't think that at the time that Josephus is writing is really important to anybody, but the Jews, I don't think that the the the Ptolemies, you know, were really that interested in it, you know, at the time that everything's going on, but I would say that the Talmud, there's a Talmudic text that is that mentions the exact same thing about Alexander the Great wanting to to to meet the High Priest. And the only difference is that in the Talmud, that Alexander the Great is met by the grandson of. Let me make sure that I'm saying that right. Yeah, by the grandson of Jadua, who is who Josephus says that met met the High Priest Simeon in Jerusalem. So it gets it off by one by two high priests. So unless Alexander met the High Priest at two separate times and said the same thing to the High Priest, two separate times, then there I mean, there's there's clearly a what I would consider a if not contemporary, it's contemporary enough. And then you have to get first and second Maccabees, you know, second Kings, you have biblical texts that that already talk about what's what's going on, that what Daniel's talking about, all these events that they have knowledge of. So next question is, well, if that's all true, how do we explain that Alexander, let a Persian ally did not take Jerusalem? Every ancient civilization did the secludions after Alexander's death of Ptolemy went in there and seized Jerusalem. We have the secludions, of course, another descendant, the Babylonians, the Asinians tried to attack it. And the two accounts from two of the greatest Cyrus the Great, who was purposely seeing a copy of Isaiah and Josephus's account of how do we explain that in regards to the why was Jerusalem spared? And no one else was. You know, I really I really don't know the answer to that. There are many positive answers. I think it'd be good if maybe like if Plutarch gave us a definitive answer of why Jerusalem was spared. But unfortunately, I believe all that we have are just Jewish Jewish narratives and and they all they all differ. You know, whether they're from the from whether Samaritan text or Midrash or Talmud, there's there's a lot of different traditions as to what happened when it happened and who it happened with. I don't I really don't know the answer to that. As far as what happened historically, Dr. Josh, what do you think? Certainly not my period. How much time do I have left? You have one you have two minutes, 20 seconds. Now, I know we haven't really gone through this much, but I would just like to ask a question on linguistics, if that's OK. Now, since the linguistic profiles of text that we have Daniel may not be that of the original author due to modernization of language over time, just as probably the text of Homer that came down to Cicero and we have today may not represent a profile from Pizzastratus, but maybe a closer time of Alexander where they did a lot of editing, why would a linguistic approach offer more reliable testimony than that of Josephus and the Jews on the dating of Daniel? Sorry, what was the last part? Why would a linguistic approach offer more reliable testimony to dating Daniel than testimony from Josephus and the Jews on the date? As far as the book of Daniel is concerned, it's my quote unquote expert opinion that that the linguistic arguments alone are not enough to date the book of Daniel. So I don't think that the linguistic arguments are the strongest arguments for a later date. OK, guys, you have one minute left. I think that's it. I'll go ahead and see my time to Dr. Boyce. All right, thank you. Thank you, Jonathan, for that cross examination. We will pass the time to Dr. Steven Boyce or do you guys would you guys prefer if you go one one and then bounce back? Do you have a preference in that? No, you can go ahead. That's fine. Dr. George, I'm good. All right, OK, so we'll pass the time to Dr. Steven Boyce. You've got 10 minutes to cross examine the other side. And yeah, time starts at your first word, Steven. You're muted, by the way. One of the statements you made, Jim, was about the idea of the Maccabees closing the cannon really around that time. Would you say? Sorry, go ahead. Would you say that they were so open to the cannon? It wasn't closing. It was more closing at that time than it was already closed around the time. Josephus said that it was. Well, I didn't say that that's when cannon closed. I'm saying that that in according to the Bible, that that was when Judas Maccabees collected up what was considered their their holy scriptures or our scriptures that were important to them. But they would have not have added any more into the canonical status in their day. Why wouldn't they? They said the prophets were dead and that they were awaiting a prophet. They were in a transition period where would you say they were in a transition period? That's why they made Simon the High Priest forever until a faithful prophet would come. Sure. I mean, there are a lot of scholars that believe that the book of Daniel is a Maccabean production, that it was produced by by the Maccabees or a supporter of the Maccabees. So I mean, and it fully supports their cause more than any other biblical text. So I don't see any reason why they wouldn't, especially if Judas Maccabees is collecting these towards the the towards 167 towards the time of the late dating of the book of Daniel. But would you but would you say they've already established that Daniel was a part of the ancient fathers as they stated in chapter two, which is actually the father of the Maccabean sons speaking there, that it was an ancient thing that took place at a different time. Not not not so much at their time, but an ancient time given to the same status of Abraham and David and Elijah. Sure, it's talking about these these characters like the other three characters. We don't have any evidence for Daniel as a historical character. Everything points to him being a a legendary literary creation or possibly a possibly a character that's influenced by the the the ugeretic character. I think we just lost Jim. I think you froze up, Jim. I didn't get that last part. I think your computer froze up on us. See there? Yeah, Jim, you could just repeat from the word ugeretic, I think I think you may be muted as well now. Oh, yeah, yeah, you're fine now. Yeah, OK, OK, sorry. Did you guys catch all that? We missed the last part. We missed maybe the last comment. You were talking about ugeretic Daniel. Oh, yeah, the ugeretic character Daniel could possibly be a character inspired by him. Sorry, there's a storm going on right now. And I live in the in the sticks. So my unacceptable. Yeah, well, get over it. Just kidding. OK, sorry. Oh, no, you're fine. So to me, what language if if a book was written in the second century, what would the likelihood of that language who have been given the rest of the apocryphal books in that timeline? What language would have it had been written in? I would say in either Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, most likely Greek. So if it would have been more likely in Greek, which most of the apocryphal works are, say, maybe the Syriac, what why would a work of Daniel be done both in Hebrew, transition to Aramaic all with chapter eight and then trans back into Hebrew? Would you say that would have been the original text or it would have been the translation of the original text in Greek? Which order would you put them in? Well, I would say it would first be in the Aramaic in Hebrew and then in the Greek because it wouldn't be really conducive to the acceptance of it as a sixth century BCE text, as it's purported to be. So you'd have to or you guys have to admit that this would have been a unique situation out of all those apocryphal works where all of them were pretty much in Greek and this would have shown up in Hebrew in the middle of the Hellenized culture where the writings had started transitioning into the Greek, including books like First, Second Maccabees and Third and Fourth Maccabees, for that matter. I mean, I don't think so at all. I mean, I think that just the fact that there is Hellenization present in the the writings of the book of Daniel shows that it had to have happened at least before the conquest of Alexander the Great in the fourth century. Yeah, but even the later Hellenist. Would you agree that the push of the Hellenization is what moved the Septuagint writers in Alexandria to place a Bible together because the native tongue of Hebrew and had pretty much almost disappeared in multiple cultures of Israel. We're not even Jews knew their own native language, except for maybe phrases or words or segments. And this was the big push by why the Septuagint came to rise by the time we're in the Maccabeean period. Well, that's not that's not completely true. I mean, it still existed in the liturgical sense. So in a liturgical setting, it still existed. So but that definitely doesn't mean that that there weren't scribes who knew how to write it, that there weren't people who knew how to speak it, that there weren't people who knew what they were what they were hearing. And I mean, and, you know, and the fact that Aramaic and Hebrew, they aren't all that dissimilar, you know, that also lends credence to the the likelihood that they maintained their their their mother tongue and their their earlier traditions orally. Yeah, to be clear, that that's what I'm saying, that there was only small segments that would have been trained really in the Hebrew language or more like you said, liturgical like the priests certainly would have the Levites would have definitely had that. But the communities as a whole were losing that part. That was even happening at points in the Amaya's day. Well, the the tradition holds that the entire Torah was was was remembered at, you know, in the oral tradition that and that the old tradition actually it goes even beyond what the Torah says that there's there's according to Jewish tradition, the the Torah is only just a portion of the oral tradition. Yeah, and I typically make a large distinction between oral and written as well, because the Jews were all about memorization, but many of them that were memorized were also partially illiterate or mostly illiterate. Writing would have been another segment, but kind of going into this transition. So they're writing in a Hellenized world just a few years later from that time, you have Qumran, you have the scribes of Qumran, you find these these teachings of Daniel in this commentary, for example, like the Midrash of Eschatology and in that Midrash, it's stating that he was both a writer and a prophet, what they have been unaware of what was taking place in this time period in the second century, where they have been wrongly assessing Daniel's belief, who he is like, OK, they're calling him a prophet and a writer. And that would have been within just about a hundred under a hundred years from their writings that are in Qumran caves. So where do they fit into this? Because they didn't perceive him as a contemporary. They perceived him as a part of those that would have been equal to the writings of Second Samuel, Deuteronomy, Hosea, Isaiah. When dealing with the aspects of Messiah, they had him in that same category. So that kind of stays consistent. Can I please just request that we since it's a cross examination, we could just phrase it in a form of a question that would be really helpful. I'm bringing it back around. So when you when you look at Qumran, Jim, where do they come into the equation and go, all right, that looks fitting to what the Maccabeans were saying about the prophets being dead. They'd already recognized something being in the past and how they categorically did it. Right. So when it comes to the preservation of the book of Daniel in the Qumranic text, there are only eight manuscripts that that preserve it. Daniel 12 is completely absent. Most of Daniel 9 is completely absent. I believe every text that we have is fragmentary. I don't I don't think that we have one full chapter. I think everything is the most the biggest run that we have. I think it's like five verses. So, I mean, one minute. But the fact that it's preserved in the in the Dead Sea Scrolls doesn't say much to me personally, especially when you take into account that there are several other second century texts that are that we find in amongst this this collection of the estines. But would you say that that's equal to what they did? Because the fragments I'm talking about is not actually of the text. It's it's of a commentary of the text. And they quote from Daniel 12. And my question is they're giving that statement of Daniel. They're calling him a prophet and a writer, which would have been within a hundred seconds with which would have been in a hundred years. They're giving him commentary equal to Deuteronomy, Hosea, etc. in these did rash eschatology fragments. Got you, got you. So you're talking about four Q one, four, seven or one, five, seven. Right, right, right, right. And a and I think it's four, four, seven and four, eight. So those are, if I remember correctly, they are from around seventy five to ninety B.C.E. And right. So I mean, that's what. Eight years after the the the second century date of the book of Daniel. So, I mean, I don't see an issue there at all. All right. Thank you. Thank you both sides for this really fascinating cross examination. Yeah, with that, we move over to our Dr. Josh Bowen and also to Jim Majors, which one of you. I know who will be going first. Good, Josh. All right, man. You've been you've been one of us. Yeah, I feel like we're we've we've left my field behind, man. Like it's all you. OK, all right, Jim. Yeah, your 10 minutes starts at your first word, Jim. OK, so a question for either one, whoever wants to answer it. What is the prophecy in the book of Daniel that you believe is a prophecy? Like what what what what what first specifically? Well, I think there's a couple of things that we have to account for. I think one of the things that Josephius reported on Prover is Prover realized that these events did occur now. Obviously, some of the bigger prophecies first of the Persian Empire. Not only that, but the prediction of Alexander the Great. Can I can I rephrase my question? Yes, sure. Can you give me an example of a prophecy in the book of Daniel that is not an event already recorded in Canon? Yeah, OK. Yeah, I mean, I think one of the others when we talk about the prediction of the the Iron Man with clay feet, the Roman Empire. We also under which, obviously, no one, even in the second century, BC would have known to predict not only the rise, but the fall of the Roman Empire as well around 410 AD. The other thing that we have to deal with from a prophecy is the fact of the destruction of the temple, which not only is he predicting the cutting off of the Messiah, but the time of the destruction of the temple, which doesn't fit the secluded king, Antiochus, going in and desolating it. But a complete destruction of the temple, which we see in 70 AD. So those are very clear prophecies that we see come to realization from the book of Daniel. OK, so two things. I guess I'll mention the Roman Empire first. What what makes you believe or what how do you how does it that you come to interpret the the iron and clay feet being represented of the Roman Empire when in at least three other places, Daniel explicitly says that it's Greece? Well, you know, I mean, if you think, you know, there should be a fourth empire like iron, just as iron breaks to pieces and overcomes all else. So it shall break into pieces and shatter. So now from Jerome, who understood that this was clearly refers to the Romans is the iron empire, which breaks into pieces and overcomes all others. He describes that it's feats and toes a partly of iron and partly of earthenware, a fact most clearly demonstrated at the present time for just as it was first nothing stronger or hardier than in the Roman realm. So also in these last days, there is nothing more feeble since we required, since the Romans required the assistance of barbarian tribes, both in their civil wars and against foreign nations. So that's how he understood that being Rome. And that's, you know, one of the thing that consistent throughout is identifying it with Rome. But why would the author of Daniel, like the one who's writing it, mention the Greece as the fourth kingdom? Well, and that's where the interpretation comes down to, because he mentioned, you know, the Babylonians, the Persians, you know, the Greeks, and who is that fourth empire? Now, proffer interpreted that and and some of the Jews, as they understood that is Israel. But, you know, Jerome and other Christian writers of the period has traditionally understood that as Rome. Yeah, so over time, you know, people have interpreted it differently. I mean, you have, like you said, you have people who interpret it as as Rome, Hippolytus in the early third century. I believe I believe early third century around 200. Has I believe the first Christian who uses Rome as the the fourth kingdom. It's because at that time, you know, Rome was already coming into power. Greece was already just a thing of the past. So in order to apply it to their time, Hippolytus, of course, interpreted it like that. And you might think, you know, that's just just a coincidence. You know, it could there could be another explanation. Well, sure. But but then you see a pattern of this happening as time goes on when the Roman Empire becomes obsolete, then it's the Islamic Empire. And then it's even have some more modern interpretations that use Russia or the United States or, you know, some other wackadoodle interpretation. You know, I think that it's just a a product of the theology and that we should take Daniel at face value instead of trying to interpret it in the light of tradition or later interpretations. And Jim is just want to ask if you could phrase it in the form of a question. That would be really helpful. Thank you. I apologize. I apologize. I forgot, Dr. Josh, you have any questions? I suck at this. Oh, no, actually, I have another one. Can I jump in on that one, Jim? Sure, go for it. Yeah. So with the interpretation, I think we all agree that there's been different theories early and later, like you said, Hippolytus or etc. about that fourth kingdom. I do think that you would agree that there are four kingdoms, not three, whether it just explicitly says Rome or no Rome. But we still have to deal with the statement that the temple would be not defiled, but destroyed. So if 70 AD, let's just say Rome is out of the picture, let's just eliminate them. So if 70 AD, the actual temple was destroyed, even if that were predicted in 164, 167 AD or B.C., excuse me, it's still either a awesome coincidence or whether it's Rome that belongs there or not, the Antiochus of Epiphymy's desecration cannot be the fulfillment of what he said there because he didn't destroy the temple. Titus did. So there's still an act of prophecy. Even if we eliminate Rome and not get distracted by that fourth kingdom, we have a temple destroyed. It's either coincidental or there may be something to that. Would you agree with that, I guess? And it's not me asking you a question. I should stop. But I would say that there's an argument to be made there. Well, I mean, I think that, you know, Daniel 9, you know, it's like I said, you know, I think the focus is on this last week. I don't think that the rest of it has anything to do with it. Just want to ask if you could if you could just just throw another Oh, sorry. Well, OK, all right. So, well, let me let me push then a little bit on. So I think, Jim, what you were asking, if Daniel specifically says in chapter 8 and chapter 10 through 12 that this is Greece, I mean, specifically says that. And the events that are described in Daniel 11 are specifically those of the Ptolemies and the Sluices and the language that is seen in nine, 10 to 12, eight and probably seven as well, connect these four events. Did Daniel get it wrong? Like second Estra says, like, did he did he not understand it? Was it not revealed to him that it was Rome? And that's for anybody. Oh, sorry. You know, I think with these prophecies once once again, we had, you know, not not to berate pro for of tire. He was brilliant in his own class. He was one of the educated pagans of the time. He just didn't believe in moon people. And he was very familiar with the history of the of the period and the ancient citations from those that recorded the event. He understood what it meant that these things came to fulfillment. Now, he he he understood that at his time. And which seconds. OK, who was the king of Jerusalem when it fell? Guys, you've got about 12 seconds. Was Daniel correct about who the king of Jerusalem was when it fell or the king of Babylon when it fell or when Jerusalem fell or when Babylon fell? Well, I would have to say whether it's the report of the second century or the report is from sixth century. They would it doesn't matter when the time is up, Jim, just allow him a few really sorry about that, Jonathan, to just briefly answer that in less than 10 seconds. And then the time will just continue to your time, Josh, for cross examination. But go ahead, Jonathan. Well, yeah, I would say that the book of Daniel is correct. Once again, we are looking from history at 2600 years after the event. There was full histories of that time available to men like Josephus, who was able to go back and write and cooperate on that time using the histories of the Babylonians, people of those areas that had the information from their time. So the question is who why would or I can't ask questions, but I would say that they would have had the better information. All right, Josh, the time is yours. Yeah, so and so I guess this this sort of leads me maybe methodologically here. And again, this is just for either of you, but Jonathan, since you were saying it, that sounds. Do you then trust or distrust? Archaeological excavations or, you know, like we didn't have Kanaeiform sources up until what, a little over 100 years ago? So a serial, you know, serialogy as a field has blown up what we know about the ancient Near East. So do you think that first century historians that you would you would trust what they say over archeological data or textual evidence that we now have from archeological data or material culture? Well, remember this position that we're debating is from pro for tire. This is not something that modern consensus actually came to on their own. This this is from the pagan. This this view does not come out of modern archeology in the sense it originated with pro for, but what I would say archeology is important. It does aid in evidence. I mean, for many years, you know, there was information that we didn't have that does come to light. But remember, when we're dealing with archeology, we're dealing with exhibits that we have to interpret. Historians, you know, go and provide testimonial from examining records of their periods as well. And as I mentioned, you know, that they had record to sources that are not extant today. And this was published in a time that could have been easily disputed from the people that were still there. They had a library in Alexandria. If you think about it, the book of Daniel was translated into Greek. It was put into their language and it was spread across their civilizations. It was ample opportunity for the period that was much closer than we are to make that analysis. I mean, we they had many historians at that time and even afterwards that could have easily debunked Daniel, that was already circulated throughout their society in Greek. Would it not make sense with things like the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the burning of pagan text that perhaps the only reason that we do have porphyry is because it was preserved in a Christian text? Well, you know, and here's the thing, the Christians are responding. So we so if we look at what's happening with pro for a lot of the information we get are solely from the Christians. So what they would have been out there if someone would have attacked them earlier, we would have had those reports as well. And this is the thing. There was many attacks that came out. Josephus reports about it. He was attacked. And that's what prompted him to write against Apean because he was writing against the Greek Hellenistic philosophers that were denying that the state of Israel was actually ancient. So against Apean is actually responding to it. And we have many reports out there. So I mean, we're talking about well documented particular times that they had access to these histories. I mean, Arian is writing in the second century, giving us full histories from that time. Oh, Dr. Bush, you want to jump? I was going to just add to that to kind of what Jim was saying. I mean, it could be said that way, too. But we also know that Eusebius wrote entire sections against pro for as well, but we don't have his apart from Jerome either. So it's not that just Jerome only saved the guy that was wrong or the guy he didn't disagree with. We wish we had Eusebius decided that, too, history loses things. And that's why archaeology, I believe, is very important as well. But there were early testimony of historians, not just Josephus in agreement with timelines like Jonathan demonstrated in his opening. You had you had the Greeks coming in saying, hey, these are similar events. There are some magical differences because we all agree. Historians aren't perfect in all their details, but they're all saying the same things happened or didn't happen. And they were a lot earlier. And we know the later time goes on. Information gets lost when we go through times of history. Why do you think the the Talmud says that Alexander the Great was met by Simi and the just outside of Jerusalem and Josephus says that Alexander the Great came to Jerusalem and was met by the grandfather of Simi and the just. Yeah. And so once again, what we don't have wrong and just like in any investigation or witnesses, there are going to be minor details. But the statement of facts that Alexander met with the High Priest is consistent. And and what that shows from the Babylonian Talmud, which was probably compiled a little time later after Josephus, is the fact that it's an independent report. Now, if his report would have been exact to what Josephus says, then he was either cribbing off Josephus. But the fact that there is some slight differences in the account, what we have there is an independent source that said that the Jews met with Alexander, which gets credibility to the case. It doesn't take away from it. The the book of Daniel in chapter nine, there is a a prophecy following Daniel's prayer versus 24 through 27. There are three clear divisions here. There's a period of seven weeks, a period of sixty two weeks and then a period of one week. What are the divisions of these? Where does it start? Where does it end? Yeah, and I'm not going to say that's outside of my right. And there's been a lot of lot of differences in these views, even among the Christian scholarship between Rome and Eusebius and others. I once again, I would say that's a little outside of my death and interpreting things from my standpoint. There are some. If it was written in sixth century BC, then he predicted things that he could not have known and would you also say that he predicted things incorrectly? Well, some of the things are obviously in the eye of a holder when we're looking at them, obviously, Jerome, Eusebius, Polonarius, Hippolytus. There are different things that came under discussion, even for Josephus, the way he understood that. So there have been differences in opinion in some of the prophecies that I don't, you know, so in the context of the Deuteronomists, anyways, then we shouldn't take him to be a prophet. Being as if he gets one thing wrong, then the then it's not the word of God. Well, you know, one of the things is 50 seconds left. No sort of time. Well, the thing is they understood that it was composed in the spirit of prophecy. The Jews believed that that book was produced at that time. And the problem from that standpoint is the documents at that time did not get in. And we have a superstitious tradition amongst the Jews that they wouldn't have added anything in. They felt that he had predicted prophecy. If the Jews believe that he was a prophet, why wasn't he included in the writings of the prophets, but instead in the in the writings later? Yes, now that that was now Josephus. Oh, go ahead. 10 seconds. Well, Josephus does classify him with the prophets, not with the writings. That was done afterwards. All right, the writers of Koum Rahn, the writers of Koum Rahn also placed him as a prophet. All right, thank you very much, guys, for that intense cross examination that we've had, and this has been really, really, really helpful. And a lot of people have benefited from it, judging from the comments of getting from the live chat. And with that, we move to the discussion phase, because again, what happened in the cross examination is that we tended to get a little bit of discussion. We do have a time for discussions, 30 minutes to be precise. We'll be this will be free and yeah, this will be free. Let me just try and reset my clock. OK, 30 minutes. Time starts now and I'll open it to any one of you to just have an open discussion. Questions, comments, anything? I'm just making one comment. I'll let you guys respond in that promise. I'll shut up and let Dr. Josh talk, because I know it's why everybody showed up anyways, so when it when it comes to prophecy, like, we're talking about things that are predictable or that have predictive power. So I would ask why is it that a sixth century author would get all of these things wrong? Like all these these events that that that he lived through, why would he get the characters, the times, the places, everything wrong about major events? Because honestly, that that's one of the probably the biggest obstacle that keeps me from having a sixth century view of the text. Well, you know, a lot of what we try to piece together from the historical counts and I mean, us today is we're trying to gather what historical information that we have available to put it together. So, you know, and once again, it comes down to this view that, you know, why is there this view that the Jewish writings, while it may contain some things are outside of their worldview, are not able to aptly provide an assessment because some of the questions that you have around the historicity is either through arguments from silence or from other reports from other historians that may seem to contradict or view. And once again, I want to get to the facts as well. But the question is, we do have historians of the period that are writing. Why is why are the Jewish writings get this mark that they're unworthy for consideration? And we need a Greek source to back it up. And the only reason I say that, Jim, is because, you know, Josephus really documents the Jewish writing process. They just just like the Chaldeans and the Babylonians, they assign that task to their priests. Well, this was done for the Jews, too. The high priests and the prophets were the ones that are writing. They had standard practices. They had a number of scholars with them. So why would we feel that in absence of maybe a Greek comment, which, you know, like Herodotus and Xenophon, don't write till much later? Because we have Jewish histories that go really far back. Why would we need a Greek source? Or in some cases where we're trying to uncover archaeology, why would we not say, take a man out of word, but why would we just say that they're not worthy for consideration without? And I'm not saying it doesn't need to be cooperated, but why would we have that view on the Jewish histories apart from our own? So I'm just going to, if I could, Jim, so I feel like that's fundamentally maybe misunderstanding at least the position of Near Eastern scholars that work with the period that I know. So, for example, let's take something like where was Bel Shazar when the kingdom of Babylonia fell? Right. Where was he? Has nothing to do with the Greek source or, you know, a Jewish source. It has to do with, you know, Paul, and Bill goes and looks at the the royal inscriptions from the period in Cannaeiform, you know, looks at the administrative texts, for example, and there are two administrative texts that show that Bel Shazar has supply sent to him outside of probably outside of Babylonia, at least on the on the border. Right. It's clear that Navinaitis, when he comes back from Taman, that he's he takes back over royal, you know, his royal prerogatives, even the ones that just the few that he gave up for that co-regency or for that, you know, for the crown prince. So it's not a question of do we have corroboration from, you know, like a Greek historian somewhere to Xenophon say something about this, it's look, we have these, this is, this is how this works. Right. I mean, we're looking at these Cannaeiform texts and saying, OK, so we know where Bel Shazar was and does this then line up with the biblical text also. I want to go back to are we just kind of open ended here? Is it? Yes, it's open and it's OK. I want to go back to what we're talking about in the time frame, like criteria, because I feel like our questions have bounced around a little bit to the second century, fourth century, fifth century. Back to what allows an opening for a book to come in? Like if Daniel's a new work, it shows up in the second century. Who would have recognized its origin? Who would have been the people in the Jewish communities that would have whether it's 1st, 2nd Maccabees, for example, or or whether it's Judith, whatever the book is, who would have recognized its timeline, its existence, its allowance and would have written about what it is? It would have been the Jewish communities, right? Well, there are certain parts of that the Jewish communities would have recognized, but would have been more ignorant about interpreting without help, of course, things like the secession of kings or the different battles or the different marriages, things like that. It's more unlikely that somebody who was unlearned would know about that specific of history, but things like the early court tales and chapters one through six, Daniel and the lion stand, the three friends in their furnace. These tales, they I believe that they would have had familiarity with something that would have been told during the period of of exile under Neobablonian rule as a way of, again, like I believe it was constructed in the second century for the purpose of encouraging them to maintain the the the laws of the Torah and to maintain the Jewish customs and traditions. But they would have had to so you would say it would come down to the priests or perhaps the princes, somebody in important levels to allow such a text to be collected in and placed in, whether it's commentary, canonical, like with all these other books. My point is the macadamia. No, no, no, I'm sorry. I think you misunderstand me. I'm saying that it would it's more likely that somebody who was more learned would would identify certain historical events in Daniel. But overall, I think that the both the Jewish community and the learned and the unlearned would identify some aspects of of the book of Daniel as as it's written as being historical events. But I guess the question is then who identified that time period outside of pro for later, which was more in a linguistical argument, which, by the way, to be clear, I do think the book of Daniel had things done to it in that time frame, for example, I think Belle in the Dragon, I think Susanna, the song of the Jewish boys. I think all of that was probably compiled in the frame time that you're in for your dating of Daniel. It's not that I don't think that something happened with the book of Daniel at that time, you're saying what happened is it was collected of sections like one and six, which go back to earlier times coming into these new sections there when actually pro for and Jerome were dealing with the fact that these these extra sections were not Nessa, the sections you're arguing for. It would have been the sections of the Jewish boys, the Belle in the Dragon. This was the contention between pro for and Jerome. Well, no, no, because porphyry makes the arguments of of Nebuchadnezzar being the king during the invasion. He makes the the argument against the the confusion between Jehoi and the the conflation of Nabonitis with Nebuchadnezzar. But but you know that Jerome combated the fact that they were not the same king. He made the distinction. He actually talks about that. No, do you know what his argument is? Well, Jonathan had read it just a minute ago and I'm pretty sure even on his screen, he actually had the reference to it when he was arguing pro for position on that. And he actually what is what is porphyry's argument? Well, he was using that passage to go against. He was trying to use it to show that it's a generation. He was using it to attack Matthew. And that's what Jerome reports in that. Right. But but how is he saying that that Jehoi Kim is Jehoi Chen? No, well, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Oh, it's my meat on I don't want to interrupt you. Go ahead, Jonathan. I'll go after you. So Jerome says, let no one there for imagine and imagine that Joe Kim in the beginning of Daniel is the same person as the one who was spelled Joe. I can I'm sorry for my pronunciation in the commencement of Ezekiel for the latter has Chen as its final syllable, where the former has Kim and is for this reason that in the Gospel, according to Matthew, there seems to be a generation of the same thing, because the second group of 14, extending to the time of Joe Kim, ends with the son of Joe Isiah. And the third group begins with Joe Chen, son of Joe Haikim. Being ignorant of this factor, pro for formulated a slander against the church, which only revealed his own ignorant as he tried to prove the evangelist Matthew guilty of error. So that's right. That's what he's referencing. Matthew one one eleven and says that that basically that that Jack and Nia is the the grandson or or Joe, Joe, Joe Kim, Joe, Chen, wait. Yeah, Joe Chen is the grandson of Josiah. But that's just due to an alternate reading. All Jerome has to go off of is the Greek and Latin text. So. But he did go he worked with the Jews on the translation. So he had the Hebrew text because he was translating the Hebrew into Latin. He himself wasn't wasn't translating it. He was he was the one basically transcribing it essentially, according to tradition. No, well, I mean, just I mean, he reports that we have lots of document. He obviously he had a team. It wasn't him by himself, but he was very much involved. He was trained by the rabbi and he reports in working with the Jews. And that's where it comes up to discussion on these other texts. But no, he was trained in Hebrew. He remember Augustine attacked Jerome for his translation of Joe, because his translation of Job made it into the the North African church. And they attacked Jerome because that was his translation. So they didn't identify that work with some secondary writer. They came after Jerome. Jerome explained his reasoning for the translation of Gord to ivory. So we're talking about a Hebrew scholar that is well recognized. He was trained by a rabbi in Hebrew to do this massive project from taking going to the Hebrew, which he said he did to translate. And once again, he was commenting against other editors at the time that was working on the Jewish canon, saying that you have to do it from the Hebrew. So I mean, he was well, I mean, he was an expert in the Hebrew. And when he was an expert in it, because he didn't even even begin to learn it until until after the authorship of the the Greek text. But I mean, I mean, he's he's known as translating from the Greek to the Latin, not the Hebrew to the Latin. Well, I mean, he did the entire Old Testament and he does right, which at this time was already translated into Greek. Well, yeah, but he went to his specific testimonies. He went straight to the Hebrew to do the translation into the Latin. You're talking about his his last version of the Old Testament. Right. Well, yeah, I'm talking about the entire Old Testament. Right. Right. So that was his his last his last works or whatever. But anyway, this is his argument. His argument was from Ezekiel. And when he was writing against Propheter, he wasn't just fighting it from Matthew's perspective. He went back to Ezekiel's mentioning of it. But you have to go to every mention like in Jeremiah and in Ezekiel. They both mentioned who the king was during the the during the siege of Jerusalem and they both disagree with Daniel. Literally, everybody up until the time of of gosh, I guess, Josephus is is against, you know, Jerome's apologetic, I would call it because essentially, Jeremiah's argument is that it's it's it's written in code and that you can only understand it if you if you translate it. But once you translate it, well, then you can see that that there's actually no confusion. It's actually saying this king, but it really means this king. But what really isn't isn't an argument. It's just a really, really bad apologetic. It's reaching is what it is. But it's not something that's held by anybody today. But this was the argument between Jerome and and Propheter because looking at the the adotian perspective of this and he was writing against saying, well, why are people accepting this text? In fact, there's a part where Jerome's why are they accepting this text? Because he was standardizing it from his perspective of the Hebrew text, which he also sent the researchers into Jerusalem to accumulate this information. His argument about Jehoiakum and so forth was on the basis of the Hebrew wording, not the Greek wording of it. No, the the the the miss under the the the acceptance slash rejection between the septuagint and the the adotianic version was not, you know, not due to to that at all, not due to Jack and I or Jehoiakum, but mostly evolved around Daniel 9 and the and and specifically verse 25, because the the septuagint version included a punctuation mark between 62 weeks. Well, between the I'm sorry, the septuagint put a punctuation after the seven weeks and sixty two weeks, which would essentially provide a reading of a combination of the sixty two and the seventy to sixty nine, whereas the adotianic translated it in in the in the plain reading of it, that there will be that from the going forth to the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem into a messiah of the branch will be seven weeks and three score and two weeks. This the city, the city shall be built again. So and then the Masoretic tradition, which is different than both of them. So that was the most of it evolved around. But for the most part, like, you know, you're some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Dead Sea Scrolls agree with with the the Masoretic text of over 90 percent. There's there's there's very, very little variation, but it agrees with it way more than either of the Greek versions. Right. But my point with Jerome was and I agree with you and I'm glad you said that I didn't know if that would ever come up. But how much the Masoretic streamlined the Dead Seas, even the transitions of the Aramaic is spot on. But when we're talking about Jerome, say that again, I'll say for the most part, yeah. Yeah, there's there's always differences. It's there's about there's about 10 percent of the Aramaic that's left out. Yeah. And unfortunately, it'd be nice if Daniel was just in one giant scroll and that would make life easier in the Dead Sea. But like you said, there's I think the six. It'd be nice if any of the books were just one scroll. But we're thankful for what we have. It's better than most, but I mean, the New Testament has some issues with manuscripts that the Dead Sea Scrolls do better with and they're older. So it's not better than a seriology. So I just throw that out. I mean, I mean, you know, not everybody can stick sticks and clay. Josh. What would you say about the Dead Sea, though, where these these scribes to whoever they are, whomever they are, are are are writing through these commentaries, which, like you said, they don't have Chapter 12, which I don't know if you hold to the argument that, well, that that proves great Greek influence, Greek mythology, resurrection, where I think that there's there's Greek influence all throughout the book of Daniel without Chapter 12. Right. But is the Greek influence? This is my next question. Do you think the Greek influence automatically makes it second century? Do you think Greek influenced even the fifth and sixth century part of the world in their understanding of things or in their intermingling of cultures, for example? As far as today goes, I would say that from about three twenty we see the rise of Hellenization across the entire region. Well, you would have to agree as well that, like, I mean, the Greeks entered the Near East, really, I think it was the ninth century B.C. They even built a temple by the seventh century B.C. And even archaeological discovery showed pottery there in great amounts that were going into the seventh century period. And I think it was I cannot remember if it was opium. I can't remember who found it. But there were two documents discovered that were five fifty B.C. Describing trade agreements between the Babylonians of the Near East with Greece, with Tyre, with. Of course, that explains things like certain Greek loanwords in the in the book. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So so the Greek culture was not like so you would hold the position just because there is Greek influence, boom, it's automatic second century, that there could have been Greek influence. Like there's instruments in Daniel with Greek terms or what I would say is that in terms of a sixth century dating, we don't see any other sixth century text, Babylonian text, that is, that that express this level of Hellenization. I mean, while Hellenization did exist in Babylon, the the text from Babylon and the Hebrew text weren't weren't keen on on on expressing Hellenized ideas, you know, willfully, you know, without without influence. Like the the instruments, for example, the the court instruments that are Greek loanwords in the book of Daniel, you know, they while they would be familiar with the instruments during the Neobablonian period, the Hellenization women have gone so far as to replace similar Babylonian instruments with Greek instruments, if that makes sense. Well, I mean, I know that even in the wording, though, Hebrew words showed up with Greek influences. I think Yawan is one of them for the like settlements of Lonia of the western coast of Turkey. I mean, you've got different regions that did start adopting very early into that time period of the Near East. You do see it. I mean, my goodness, if there's a temple built, if there's a temple built in in the seventh century B.C., there's going to be an influx of fact. There were soldiers in the armies of like the Jews and the Greeks were even working together at one point in different facets of war when it came to you. So there's going to be some. But you also have to remember if the book of Daniel is written in the sixth century, it's not being written in those in those areas. The author would be writing under a post Neobablonian Persian empire in in that area. I mean, so I mean, you would see expect to see Persian influence. You would expect to see Babylonian influence, of course, the remaining Babylonian influence, Jewish influence, but you would not expect to see a high level of of Greek influence so much that you have three words to reference court instruments of which there were already historically similar Babylonian equivalents and an additional Greek loanword symphonia on top of that. I don't I don't think that it would have reached that level of hellenization. Guys, just just to announce that we were trying to wrap this up in about five minutes. But go ahead, Stephen. So going into like Persian words or Acadian words or something like that during the Mesopotamia, like in chapter one of Daniel, for example, like the Hebrew section, not not the Aramaic, if you have been as there and the Greeks didn't even know how to translate it. I mean, they thought it was a personal name, but it turns out it was actually the interpretation of an innkeeper. What we would say an innkeeper is at the time, they thought it was just simply a personal name. They had lost meaning. Even Collins noted that in his book that it was almost a lost meaning. You see, I think it was Montgomery that listed 12 words from the Acadian's section or in the Aramaic section, 12 Acadian words and in the Hebrew one, which would almost indicate that the writer was familiar with the Mesopotamia region. So it seems like if this guy is writing this book, whether one or two authors, he was aware of distinct terminology that Montgomery actually documents of Acadian language, which would have influenced Mesopotamia. So yeah, Persian influence, old Persian, where even Collins is saying this ancient term was even known to the Greeks. They didn't know how to translate it. It took archaeological discoveries to understand it. And now we know it means innkeeper, but the Greeks thought it was a personal name in chapter one, verse three. And then you have Montgomery and these guys are like, well, there's actually a Cadian influence. There's 14 in the Aramaic, one in the Hebrew, influencing Mesopotamia reasons too. But when you look at the Masoretic text when they're translating it from from Hebrew, you know, from their written and oral traditions, they don't seem to have that issue. When you're talking about the Masoretic text, you're talking about in the other than the Masoretic text, the Hebrew text, where you where you have this issue with the the Greek authors of the theodosionic and the Septuagint versions of Daniel, you find this difficulty. Well, they found a lot of difficulties in words, which which would indicate that old Persian influence that was definitely there. I think having a Cadian words in there shows that the writer was a well because one of the things you'd made comment of earlier was the influence of society. And I don't remember if that's the word. I'm sorry, if I butchered your statement, like influence of surroundings. But if there's a Cadian terms and the writer must have been familiar with something from the Mesopotamia region, even if there's just a handful, like 14 in the Aramaic, one in the Hebrew, that Montgomery lists, there must have been some Mesopotamia. So I wouldn't eliminate. Well, Daniel is not influenced by its external cultures of that time in the fifth, sixth century period. It seems like the writer would have been with things like that or old Persian terms that are in the text as well. I do think there's an argument for older timings that were lost by the time Hellenizing cultures took over so that, like you said, these Greek texts, whether Septuagint, the theodosians, they didn't even know what certain words meant, they lost its meaning and antiquity. And even Collins had to say, yeah, this is an antiquity thing here where the Greeks didn't know it anymore. It was lost to them in understanding, right? But it wasn't lost to the Hebrews, is what I'm saying. And it makes sense that that if Babylon conquered the Acadians, you know, if if him or I'll be conquered, the Acadians, then it makes sense that those people that he conquered would, even those who assimilated to Babylonian culture, would still maintain some aspects of their preexisting Acadian culture. Right, guys, we just have about one minute left and just ask them, you guys. Sorry, Dr. George, trying to wrap this up. Go ahead. So I just just sort of bring it full circle. The consensus thing came up. Both of you guys brought that up and I want to kind of address it because this isn't an appeal to consensus in the sense that the consensus says that that's why it's right. And I think that needs to be clear if we had stopped there and said, well, look, this is what everybody says, so that we can all go home now. I think you'd have a right to say that. The reason I think the reason that consensus scholarship holds this is not some anti supernatural bias. It's not some naturalistic point of view. Again, most of the people in faculty at Hopkins where I went were Christian, right? But as Jim said, this just doesn't this just doesn't factor in. That's not how it works. The reason that this that most scholars, both evangelical and, you know, critical liberal scholars hold to a second century date is because early historical details are incorrect, not all of them, but many of them. Many enough of them that it's strange and the text is rather vague when it comes to its historical descriptions. So while it says things like this kingdom will arise and that kingdom will arise, you know, it's very vague, generally speaking. Whereas when you get down into chapter 11, it becomes this guy from the north goes here and this king from the south comes here and this person marries this person from the north and they have a they have a problem and then there's people die and then those people are left alone for a while. The point is that those details become very, very much more specific and far more accurate right up to what? Verse 40. And then at verse 40 following, it's like, oh, well, it just all goes, you know, downhill. So the fact that early is vague and inaccurate, late is highly accurate and up to a very specific point and very detailed. And I forgot the last kingdom is Greece. This is why consensus scholarship, not the other way around. Absolutely. I just want to throw one more thing. Guys, we just guys, the time is up, Jim. OK, OK, really sorry about that. Our time is up with that. We've we've concluded our 30 minutes of discussion. Guys, I just want to give a really, really applaud all of you guys for having this amazing debate, really, really intense. You guys kept it really respectful, especially just want to thank Steven and Jonathan for presenting a really good case for the Christian side and also to Dr. Josh and Jim majors for really, really making this a fantastic discussion for all of us. Really unfortunate that we have to cut it at the time. You do want to keep it strict to the time that we've already set out. So with that, guys, we do go to the Q&A session. I want to pass the time over to James. And with that, I will sign out. Thank you very much, Samuel. We'll jump into the Q&A and folks, we have about 20 to 25 minutes. So we're going to move through these questions fast. Our first one's coming in from Explain Apologetics, which, by the way, folks, pardon me, I am going to add Explain Apologetics into the description as well as we appreciate collaborating with them. And so you can also find all four guests linked in the description as well so you can hear or read more from them as we really do appreciate them. And this first question coming in from Finding Truth says, Dr. Josh and Jim, is it so hard to consider that Jerusalem was not, quote unquote, destroyed because of Daniel's prophecy? Is that an option? What is your theory? Go ahead, Jim. I mean, I don't think that. I don't know why that I honestly don't know how that that came up. I mean, I think that Daniel talks about the the rebuilding of a temple and he talks about a confirmation of a covenant. And in the middle of that 70, he's going to put it into the sacrifice and put up an abomination that caused a desolation. But other than that, I don't I don't think that it's talking about the literal destruction in that in that portion. You got it. And thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from Don Fulman says, Dr. Boyce, what is the prophecy of two thousand three hundred days in Daniel? I'm exactly sure what he's asked. Is he talking about from Daniel's timeline? He's talking about the prophecy of the the days and evenings a reference to the the daily sacrifices at the temple. All the way down to the time of Messiah. Is it time at all to the time of the cutting off of Messiah? The reference is alluding to Antiochus's banning of the the daily sacrifice. So up to the corruption, up to the corruption of it when he defiled and sacrificed the pig. Yeah, there's like three and a half year period that goes through the second half of the book before the 2300 days and evenings. I guess I don't understand the question and he can ask me on the side because he and I are pretty good friends on the side, so maybe he can clarify. I'm not sure. Is he asking what's the point of it? Is he asking why? All they ask is what's the prophecy of 2300 days in Daniel? I guess I mean, I guess the simple answer is it's up to the sacrifice periods like Jim's talking about. I mean, it's I don't know if he's looking for something specifically. Do I think it's accurate? Do I think it's false? I think I think he's asking you where you think that at what point in time you think that it's alluding to? I'm thinking that he's probably referring to the end of the 2300 evenings and mornings in Daniel. I would say probably to Antiochus, I would imagine with the sacrifice system. You got it. And thank you for this question or I should say compliment this one coming in from Don Fullman as well who said great work on this debate. So I couldn't say I couldn't agree more. Our guests are linked in the description. We really do appreciate them. And hey, if you haven't clicked already, you can find their links below. And that includes if you're listening via the podcast. So thanks for your question. Sebastian says, which method of distinguishing true from false claims of divine revelation indicates a conclusion that is exclusively concordant with one religion? I guess it depends on what parameters you have for your theological position. I'd say that whatever interpretation best explains the the the problem and and exist within the parameters set for your theological presuppositions. I'd say that'd be the best one. Yeah, I would say the methodology for sure. We go back to methodology, setting up those guidelines, following it through inconsistencies, following through any error or disposition that would contradict looking for consistencies. You got it. And this one from Endo XD. Jim has a cool mustache. No doubt. And you're a cool person. Anarkas Weasel says question for Jim seems like there are parallels between the books of Daniel and Judith in inaccuracy and hellenization. Is this a fair assessment? Yeah, there's also elements of first Enoch. I mean, then that's kind of what you see with later apocalyptic literature. There's a lot of feeding off of previous apocalyptic literature or or similar themes. You got it. And thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from Farron. Salus appreciate it said I'm not quote unquote learned enough on the book of Daniel to ask a coherent question. So no questions for me today, but thank you to the participants in modern day debate. Thanks, Farron. I appreciate that and sent in all apologetics as question if Daniel was written in 165 BC, is this still this still predates the Roman Empire's rise to power? And if the Roman Empire is in view in Daniel two and seven, then doesn't Daniel have predictive prophecy? If only Daniel was thinking about. Yeah, I mean, this is this is sort of the point that they're trying to get at that. That particularly very clearly in eight and ten to twelve. And I mean, I think through the descriptions of Antiochus in those chapters where it's clear that that's what's being referenced. And you can see that in nine, definitely. And I think probably seven as well, that Greece is in view, right? And this is why I think in Jim, correct me if you think I'm wrong here. But in Second Astros, when he says what is it in chapter 10 or 12? I can't remember. You know, he says, Daniel understood this to be Greece. But then he goes on to describe it as actually being Rome. So, yeah, I mean, that's why I think it's clear. Well, the whole little horn being Antiochus, you know, it seems like Dr. Boise, you would agree that little horns Antiochus. So how can you go from that to it being Rome? Because this is what you find in apocalyptic literature as well. And I think that's where we have to be careful with how literal we take apocalyptic literature. There are many fulfillments and consummations, many fulfillments, consummations that is both consistent in the Psalms and its prophetic nature. At times, it's very consistent in the whole entire view of Jesus's prophetic lines when he gets in the Alva discourse, where you're going down to Revelation, Revelation, the book of Revelation, for example, takes many multi over the period of history and Jewish history, apocalyptic things that were fulfilled, but not consummated. And so there can be like miniature fulfillments. And this is happening all the time in scripture, miniature fulfillments where there's a lookalike thing that happens. And then it happens again. So when Jesus talks about Daniel, he talks about the abomination of desolation. Anybody who was at that time would have said, well, that was what Antiochus of Epiphanes did. That's what Antiochus did when he desecrated our temple. But yet Jesus was still using that terminology, not as a past event, but looking to something that would come almost in a futuristic sense. So the question is, is could it be a miniature, not consummated prophecy, because we have to admit Daniel again, what Antiochus did not do is destroy that temple. Well, it doesn't say destroy, it's that's what the building of a temple and him presenting the abomination desolation within the temple. But the end, I think the end of the result of the prophecy was that the temple would be destroyed. And Daniel predicted a go ahead, Jim. Yeah, sorry. So go Dr. No, I was just like this. That's why I say these are not disinterested, what I would consider to be like critical later interpretations, right? These are theologically biased and motivated reinterpretations of a text. So like we had Stephen Cook, Dr. Stephen Cook from Virginia Theological Seminary on our channel. And we talked about Daniel, we talked about apocalyptic literature. And apocalyptic literature is is written in just such a way that it allows for this sort of flexibility. But that's the point of the literature, right? The problem that I think and I'm like, I have no expertise in apocalyptic literature. But I think that the problem is that saying, oh, well, Rome is prophesied about and you say, well, no, it's very clearly Greece. And then you say, well, no, but like it allows for that. Well, you can't then you can't stand on that, right? You have to say, well, that's a later theological interpretation. And like, I don't have a problem that somebody wants to say, well, I think God super intended that, but that's a faith based position. Well, I see that even if you if you think that that Daniel is is his prophecy and is in his correctance, the sixth century B.C. texts, it's still undeniable that the position that the Jews in the exile find themselves in in one through six, such as having to eat certain unclean foods or to worship strange gods, it is the same position that the Jews under the anti-king position were were were put under. So they would have certainly used stories like that. Those found in chapters one through six as a basis for a text or find it authoritative or even comforting enough to preserve. But the point that I was making with that is that Jesus looked at, for example, the abomination of desolation as something to come even after that time period. So even the New Testament writers or the people like the Apostles or Jesus himself also understood that apocalyptic literature to be more than. And I think you're agreeing with what I'm saying. And it sounds like. Well, I mean, Daniel does this is a before you have the desolation, you have to have the building of the temple. Right. Right. So if so, so that means in order for it to be rebuilt, it has to be destroyed. So that means that it would be destroyed in 70. And we'll be talking about a rebuilt temple in the future. There isn't there. The temple wasn't rebuilt. There is no right temple. But that's where. But that's where the the consummation part would come in, Jim. And that's the point of the writer, for example, of Revelation. And I know you're going to make the claim, perhaps perhaps that it's a faith base. They're looking forward to this rebuilding. I mean, even modern Jews are still looking forward to rebuilding. That's what makes it apocalyptic and futuristic prophecy. Right. And the writers of the Kingdom of Rome. But when did the Roman Kingdom end? Or 10. Yes, I mean, a while back. But but at no point did Daniel say it would happen exactly by the Roman Empire, which is what we're all saying. I think we all agree that it would be the kingdom following the big grease. Yeah. And I think this is where the fourth empire. Yeah. But it may be says Greece in two of the visions. So exactly. But I think. But I think that the bigger issue that I would see here is that Daniel does this right in chapter nine itself, right? So, you know, he's looking at Jeremiah's prophecy about 70 years of captivity. Right. And I mean, obviously, Daniel is claiming that he gets this vision from a heavenly agent. But the point is, is, wait a minute. It wasn't it wasn't actually 70. It was 77s, right? So we can tie it to Leviticus 26. And but the problem is that there are two ways that I think for me, anyway, that you can look at this, you can look at this as, yeah, legitimately, Jeremiah said 70 years, which I think probably wasn't supposed to be 70 specific years, but whatever. And that and that actually got super intended and he really meant it to be 77s or right. And that's a supernatural thing or this is people writing later after the 70 years of long come and gone and scratching their heads going, whoa, whoa, buddy, like, what's going on? Which is why there's no consensus among modern conservative interpreters. I want to give the last word to Josh and Jim since the question was originally for you guys. So, Bar and Ranjee goes and asks, wow, book of Daniel, let's see, need to be an expert to comment on this one. So, I shall stay silent. Well, Bar and Ranjee, thanks for coming by and hanging out with us. Probably just making fun of me. That's okay. I take it. S.J. Tomason, good to see you. It says, why are only three Greek loanwords in parentheses, musical instruments, present if his book were written when believers were living in a Greece speaking world? Well, I think I already covered this. I think she asked this question before, but if she didn't hear me just to break it down, essentially, it's an early question was that while there would have been hellenization reaching Babylon at this point, they would have familiarity with certain Greek loanwords and wouldn't be strange to find Greek loanwords. We wouldn't expect to find Greek equivalents or Greek instruments that already had Babylonian equivalents being played in the court as early as the sixth century. We we wouldn't expect to to find that level of hellenization that early. And we would also expect to find some sort of a a contemporary parallel or a contemporary Babylonian reference that that uses these same loanwords as when referring to court instruments, but all we see is references to Babylonian and Akkadian instruments. Gosh, yeah. And thank you very much for your question. This one coming in from Amy Newman. By the way, Amy Newman and CJ Cox are both linked in the description. They're both hosting aftershows, so I encourage you to check those out. Amy Newman says after show at my channel for believers. What, the two aftershows? I totally agree that they did it. Oh, that's right. So there's an but ask for believers. Is there any empirically detectable phenomena that is occurring when a prophet is predicting prophecy? Very well, you know, I would say is someone predicts something that they could not have known or foreseen they comes to pass. Now, it doesn't mean it has to be by divine revelation. Obviously, there's people that believe in ESP out there. Although Jim's point of view on ESP or the natural phenomenon. But, you know, and this is where it goes back to pro for pro for understood that what was prophesied in the book of Daniel came to pass. And that's why he he centered, you know, a whole work against it. Because as a pagan, as a Neoplatonic philosopher, he understood reading Daniel what it meant. He understood the history of the time and had come to pass. So he obviously understood that if it was sixth century and it wasn't produced, then it predicted prophecy. Well, I just want to say that even if we didn't have for free or any of his arguments preserved, even if we didn't have any any sort of a polemic or a response to the the book of Daniel as prophecy or whatever. We could still come to the same conclusions using the same methods that we use. Porphyry is is not by any means a a necessary source for a late a late dating of Daniel. We'll give you the last word, Jonathan, or Dr. Boyce, if you want it. But if you want, you can pass and we'll go to the next one. Do we can go to the next question, I think, yeah. OK, next one. Apocalypse here says prophecy, quote unquote, hasn't been defined in this discussion. Maybe I missed it, but predictive seems reductive. What do we mean by prophecy regarding Daniel? I would I would say personally that that prophecy is not just history that's being predicted, that it has that it has a predictive power to it and that it is divinely inspired, something that is is inerrant as as it's defined in in in in Deuteronomy, that if if there is is one word or one one aspect of it that is that is wrong or that can that fault can be found with, then it is not it is not the word of God and that the the person is not a prophet. Got you on this one coming in from actually, I want to give a chance because that question could be for anybody. So, Jonathan or Dr. Boyce, if you want to respond as well, you can. I think Jim's answer is pretty spot on. It is a unveiling of something that is yet to be seen that is released to somebody to understand there's two natures to prophecy. There's a futuristic nature to prophecy. It's an unveiling. It's something that's ahead of time that God unveils the human eyes to see outside of his own time and place. On the other hand, there's well, I just want to add a caveat to that. I agree with you, but it also prophecy always had a meaning to those who it was written for primarily. Oh, absolutely. If it prophesied future events, they had a present meaning. Oh, no, well, yeah. And that's where I was going with that. But that futuristic had an application for its current audience. And they use different ways to understand it like Daniel or the apocalypse. They always used imagery. Imagery was a big thing. The horn was an imagery, so they would take a futuristic understanding and they'd bring an imagery of their day, their modern time that they would understand, whether it's an item, an animal. They would use that as the means to give a writing, but there's also a second that's on the apocalyptic side. Again, prophecy is not limited to futuristic understandings. Even in the New Testament, a prophet could be somebody who's just repeating that, which was already prophetic. So there's two natures to the prophet. There's new revelation and there's repeated revelation. Must move to the next one. This one comes in from Chris. Unless Jonathan, did you have one that you want to add? No, no, I think Jim and go ahead if we can get bogged down on this. Yeah, no, no, yeah, I think they did a good job on this. There's multi facets to it. There's multi facets to prophecy. It could be expressed in apocalyptic or it could be just straight up clear. No, no imagery straight up. There's different elements to a prophecy. You got it. And Chris says, I enjoyed tonight's debate. It was very, very pleasant, exchanged by exceedingly knowledgeable guests. Love to listen to Dr. Josh, he's always very modest. And next one coming in, let's see, Patrick Lowinger says, I want to know what Dr. Boyce thinks about Julius Africanus's, I'm pronouncing that right. His second century C.E. claim contained in a letter from Origen that Daniel was fraudulent. From Origen, Origen actually defended the state of the status of the earliest parts. So I'm not sure what we're talking about, because Origen would have been a defender of the timeline of Daniel that both Josephus Jerome and Eusebius placed it in. I think you might be talking about the Superfigure Full Text. In a letter to Origen that Origen had concluded, I think it wasn't really just purports to be if it's what I'm thinking of. But if we're talking about the real man, Origen, he would have definitely placed Daniel. If it's what I'm thinking of, it's a Superfigure Full author, but yeah, I agree with where you're going. Yeah, I would say I'm not I'm sorry if I'm not familiar with that pseudo-opigraphal work, but if we're talking about Origen himself, if it's something that pseudo-opigraphal is saying that this came from Origen, it would not be accurate because Origen made a defense of Daniel and he would have placed it in the same same exact timeline that Jerome landed it, Josephus landed it. He would have been on the argument in the side where Jonathan and I are. Gotcha. And this one coming in from Sentinel Apologetics. Since the oldest Qumran Daniel fragment in parentheses for Q Dan C. Dates to 125 B.C. And if Daniel dates to 165 B.C. Does this mean that Daniel was quickly read and approved by Qumran scribes no later than 125 B.C.? No, well, it can be as late as 100. It's usually dated between 125 and 100. I mean, yeah, you have other texts that aren't canonical, that are second century texts that are that are found in in Qumran, several of them. Got you. Well, at R.K. Harrison made a comment about this, I believe he passed away back in the 90s. He had made a comment that the period of composition at in any event absolutely precluded by the evidence from Qumran, partly because there are no indications or whatever that the secretaries compiled any of the biblical manuscripts recovered. And partly there would in latter event have been insufficient time for the Maccabeean composition to be circulated, venerated and accepted as canonical scripture by a Maccabeean sect. And I think it has to be accepted as canon though, because the Qumranic texts don't don't purport to be a canonical collection. It's just simply a collection. But but but but Jim, that goes back to the fact that the fragment stated that it was written in Daniel the prophet, it was written. They did see him as a guy who wrote. Sure. But but that's not written in one of the fragments of the book of Daniel. It's written on a commentary on the book of Daniel. So I guess somebody saw the profits. But the people who didn't would be like the the Jews, whenever they said whenever the the the earliest reference that we have to their setting of the canon of the Hebrew Bible, that that Daniel is was not originally placed with the prophets. He was placed with the writings. I mean, the the Masoretic text seems to be the one that that you would hold to be more more authoritative, you know, being as you're using the Dead Sea Scrolls, which align the most with the Masoretic text. Yeah. But if there's going to be an unknown provenance of this origin of Daniel that came, we don't know where we don't know from who and then within a couple of years it ends up in Qumran transmitted and a full fledged commentary attaching it to the prophecies of messiahs equal to Deuteronomy, Hosea, Isaiah, and how many a couple years, but but we know that it's not necessary to know the question because this question is for Jim or Dr. Josh. I can give you the last response, Jim or Dr. Josh, then we're going to the next question just to keep I'll just saying that I don't think that I mean, there's evidence that it's not necessary to know who wrote it or when they wrote it in order to be accepted into canon. You've got Paulina pistols that aren't that aren't authentic. You've got writings attributed to Moses that we know Moses didn't write. I mean, it's tradition does not equal historicity. We'll jump to this next one. Appreciate your question from Ms. Maddell says, do you agree Nostradamus was a prophet since he is more accurate than the Bible prophecies? I don't know who that's for presumably for our Christian guests. I think he's just really good at writing a public literature. I think a good case could be made that you could obviously interpret a lot of that. So I do understand where Jim and Dr. Josh will be coming from in terms of spinning apocalyptic literature like that to fit a particular event. Yeah, I don't know if I would someone say he was a prophet as opposed to. Yeah, I got you in this next one coming in from Patrick Lowinger sends in another question. Appreciate it, Patrick, which was they asked. Hypothetical, if a portion or majority of was interpolated. I don't know what of like is the preposition of, but they say added to or otherwise modified during these third to must be Book of Daniels. So hypothetical of a portion or majority of the Book of Daniel was interpreted, added to or otherwise modified during the third to second century BCE. Isn't the text at a minimum of partial forgery? Oh, yeah, I would say, obviously, you know, because what's being suggested here in the hypothesis that the word came into being in the second century and then it simulated itself throughout Jewish culture into the synagogues. That's I mean, that's a vast conspiracy. So they forge work was assimilated throughout propagating claim. And and it would be a forgery. I mean, there's no other way to look at it in the sense of, you know, this isn't from Daniel in the sixth century. This isn't prophecies. This is I don't know how to look at any other word except forgery in the second century, because you get into remember what's being said is and this is where we look at history. We don't see all these texts going in and out of the Old Testament. And that's what Josephius makes, that evidence of history is clear. We don't see things going in. While the Septuagint has one or two Maccabees, as great as the Maccabee people were to the Orthodox Jews, there's no history of that if anything would have came in. So if a work with would have been as significant as the Maccabees were at that time into the Jewish canon. Yeah, that that's a vast conspiracy. It's a forged work because it's perpetrating to be someone to predict something at a time that didn't. I mean, I mean, Jim, we probably agree. I mean, yeah, I would say, you know, like, what about first and second Maccabees or second Kings? I mean, that's or Ezra or Nehemiah give you a quick response. And we got to go to the next one just because I want to get these last few questions and sorry, folks, on both channels, there are a lot of questions in the chat that we probably won't get to. And I'm really sorry about that. But we do want to respect the time of our guests. So I'll give you a quick go to the after show and I'll answer anybody's question. Oh, yeah, just real quick. But those documents, you know, Josephius, the Jews, all tests came before. And what what what we don't see is all these books coming in in the second century. I think the biggest part that we're missing is any testimony from the period that saying it's happening. Yeah, first and second Maccabees. That what I think what they're talking about is a practice there among the Jews that Josephius describes in detail how the surviving priests priests would take old records and compose them into new during times of war. So that's what Maccabees it's talking about. An ancient Jewish practice of how they are going to preserve their texts, how they were managing their records in the time of war. Josephius goes through that entire process that matches what not only Ezra did in his time, but what they're alluding to as well. During times of war, you know, the surviving priests will compose new records from the old, but it was a very strict standard process. This was left to the high priests. That's why any involvement in a work coming into the canon. Oh, I'll shut up. I'll give you a chance to wrap up in maybe like 20 seconds. No, I'll just go when we can talk later. This one from N.O.X.D. says slightly off topic. But for part of my interruption, by the way, I hate doing that. I'm really sorry. But no, I'm sorry, James, it's my bad. N.O.X.D. says slightly off topic. But if Ezekiel was alive during the rule of Nezzi was tire really a prophecy. He knew Nezzi attacked it and the people wanted it destroyed. I don't know much about this. I'm just curious. This just falls around like a bad plague, Dr. Josh. Yeah, I think, you know, the thing about it was very interesting that we see in history and I'll let Dr. Josh respond to this because I know he's done some work on it. But the interesting in this prophecy is, you know, the Jews are being laughed at by a tire and then we have this prophecy that comes out about tire. It discusses the siege engines. It talks about someone coming from the same position that's coming. It just from history and reading the event of tire, it explains it. And the other interesting facet of it is now the tables are turned on tire where Jerusalem is now spared. Tire isn't so. That's either way too coincidental because it matches the entire scene. And it doesn't matter which event of Alexander you're reading from Aryan or Plutarch or Ruffinius. We know the direction that he came into. We know what he had to do with those war engines to get across the siege into the area. And what's incredibly fascinating is the fact that the tables are turned and Jerusalem is spared from from Alexander, but tire was not. And I'll hand it over to you, Dr. Josh, I know you've done a lot on this. I mean, I guess I don't know what to say about it. You know, I would say it was a prophecy in the same way that I think the writer of Daniel starting in 1140 was prophesying. Right. And I just I think that was a genuine prediction. I think that what came before in chapter 11 was X event two. And so like I think just as Jonathan said, you know, I think Ezekiel is watching Nebuchadnezzar probably in some either in an anticipatory sense or just watching it happen and heading toward tire or anticipating that it would go that way and makes this prediction, which is part of the workles against the nations. Right. It's sort of this trope. And it doesn't come to pass. Right. And that's what Ezekiel says in chapter 29. Now, if people want to take a theological interpretation of that, which some do and say that this was actually referring to Alexander. Fine, you have problems and there are problems in Ezekiel 26 trying to make that happen, but you know, if if people are OK with those little problems being in there, God being able to work through that. Fine. I like I don't think that's what it is. But yeah, but I do think it was a genuine attempt at predicting the future. Thank you. And MJT 532 says, would Dan know what happened to the temple at roughly one sixty five? I would say, well, you know, obviously someone that's involved at the time of the secludions, you know, invasion of Jerusalem at that particular time. Yeah, I don't see why. They could have predicted a destruction of that time. You know, the Jews revolted. You know, the secludions weren't very happy about chasing them up into their their high lands. Someone at that time, if you know, you'd have to probably write it pretty close to the event. I could see very easily where the secludions would have destroyed the temple. You know, they did not, you know, they set up their own sort of sacrifice and temple to choose what they were trying to do. But I could see a person if I'm a Jew at the time writing, you know, the Jews revolted and what type of punishment are you going to receive from the descendants of Alexander in that area in spite of the losses that they incurred with some of those battles that they would destroy the temple. And that's just my own personal review of Jim or Dr. Josh. You have thoughts on that. I just have questions, not really any thoughts, but you got it. And this next one, and I think this is our final question. MJT five through two says there are eight prophecies in Daniel nine, twenty six through twenty seven, all remarkably matching events one seventy one through one sixty four B.C. Centering around Antiochus's persecution. Is that just coincidence? Well, I see it depends. Like from the Maccabean hypothesis, if you see the events unfold, then it would say that, well, and this is what pro first point was at the time that it was just too close to be coincidental. So it had to be somebody writing after that time that was very familiar with those events, which testifies to its accuracy. And because otherwise you have to come to a conclusion that he knew something that he could not have known at that point in time. So it's really from the perspective of, you know, they would only know that. Well, if prophecy is true and that came to pass, you know, that's what Prophesor. But if you were a person at that time who would have had to live through it and been part of that, one of the soldiers are involved in those campaigns. Yes, you would have that information available to report on. Gotcha. And I think, go ahead. If I could just like, I think this because I think you're right. But I think this is where the early historical inaccuracies weigh in and are incredibly problematic for or maybe not problematic, but drive scholars to say, OK, well, that's why this is sort of confirmation. This is a second century writing. Right. And it's not an assumption that's made that prophecy can't be true because like I said, opening statement, if we just assume that prophecy can be true, then we'd have to treat every text the same way, not just not just biblical text. But the second century dating is a is a position that's reached by first examining the historical, the theological and the literary nature of the book of Daniel and then coming to a conclusion, not starting with the assumption. We've got a final super chat. Kenan Oz says, Dr. Josh's team one game over. Apparently, I have a fan out there and we want to remind you, folks, all four of our guests who we really appreciate are linked in the description. And last but not least, thanks, Doubting Thomas and Spider, they are tail for your super stickers. Appreciate your support. And so I want to say huge thank you to our guests. It's been a great time. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with us tonight. It's been a true pleasure. Thank you, James, and thanks to everybody for doing this great time. Yeah, no, thanks, Jim, Dr. Josh for everything that has been really fun. Yeah, no, a lot of different. I'm going to get excited to this. And I want to mention as well, folks, I will be adding, as I had mentioned, I'm a little behind to spend a busy day, but I'm going to add explain apologetics's link in the description. And you can check out other debates like this one at their channel as well. And also, yeah, folks, if you enjoy this and you love debates like this, which you must have, you've been here for three hours, which again, thank you to our guests want to say hit that subscribe button as we have many more juicy debates coming up. And so with that, I'll be back in a moment with a post-credits scene. But one last thank you to our guests. It's been a great pleasure tonight, ladies and gentlemen. That was a fun one. We really do appreciate you hanging out here. We hope you had a great time and we are excited about the future. That was a phenomenal debate. We can't thank our guests enough. They're all linked in the description so you can hear or read more where you find those links and really excited to tell you about upcoming debates, but also want to say hi to you. Just hang out, get to say hello to those of you hanging out in the chat. And so, DeFrieg, thanks for being here. Richard Luongo, glad you're here. Richard Madsen, good to see you. Iron Cheer, you're here. Doubting Thomas, thanks for being here. Flash Gordon, good to see you. And Vlad Teeps, thanks for coming by. Dustin Ellerby, thanks for coming by. This is the first time I've seen you here before. Let me know. Gay Nomadic, we're glad you're here as well as Joshua Alec. Good to see you again. And Adam Elbilia, Mark Reed, and the Cinegeek. Thanks for coming by, as well as David Friskian and Guitar Dog, as well as Oz and Dylan McPhee. Thanks for coming by. Alex Peterson, glad you're here as well. And Krio Debunk, thanks for coming by as well as I think we're almost caught up. Apple Frenzy, good to see you. S.L., thanks for coming by. And Manny, good to see you, Sigma Annie. And then Iron Cheer is here. And let's see, Hannah Anderson, thanks for your support. Seriously, I appreciate you always giving us, lifting us up in the chat. That seriously means a lot. Seriously, appreciate it. And Germs, thanks for coming by. Is this the first time I've seen you here? I don't know, but we're glad you're here. Germs, am I saying it right? But Joyce, are you serious? Thanks for coming by. We're glad you're here as well. And Mark Reed, good to see you. Almost caught up. Nick Sayers, thanks for coming by. Good to see you. And yeah, we do enjoy these debates. It's nice to mix it up, right? I like it mixing it up because we've never done this topic before. And it's an interesting topic. It's technical for sure. But I mean, that's what makes it for the quality. I found there are a lot of debates in my life that I've listened to, like, probably three or four times to really soak it in. When you have scholars, which we tonight have four guys that are just really well read. And that's an understatement. And in terms of, I mean, these guys together have more degrees than a thermometer. I mean, really, it was a highly technical debate, which is awesome. It's high quality. Yes. And so we are excited about that. And so we want to say we hope you enjoyed it. We've got many more juicy debates like that coming up. In fact, I want to mention tomorrow, folks. Oh, baby, it's going to be fun. You don't want to miss this tomorrow night on the bottom right of your screen, a tag team debate featuring Sibyl partnering up with T Jump Flat Earth versus Globe Earth against Flatter Day Saint and his girlfriend. So that will be a juicy, interesting, intersex debate. In other words, we'll have a male and female on each team, which I really like. I like that dynamic. I think that's fun. And don't get me wrong, I've got nothing against males. I'm a male, but we also want to have a lot more female debaters on. And so I want to let you know if you happen to be a female and you're like, hey, I would love to debate, we hope you feel welcome. We hope you know that we're happy to have you come on a debate. And so in case that is ever like in question, it's like, oh, absolutely. Like shoot me an email at moderndaydebate at gmail.com. And also want to let you know, folks, we at Modern Day Debate are a neutral platform. And so as you see in the bottom right of your screen now, we are a neutral platform for debates on science, religion and politics. We want to let you know no matter what walk of life you're from, folks. Christian, atheist, liberal, conservative, black, white, gaste, right? You name it, folks. We're glad you're here. Thanks for hanging out with us. And don't forget as well to subscribe and hit that notification bell for upcoming debates, you guys, as we have many more and they're going to be fantastic. We're excited about the future now. So thanks for saying hello, Louis Presciato in the chat there. Do appreciate that. Thanks. Good to see you. And so, yeah, I do feel free to say hi to the chat. I like getting to say hi to people all over Catwell. Good to see you. So howdy, making the best of sudden onset insomnia. Hey, I totally know what you mean. I last night, for some reason, I just slept like four hours and I tried to sleep after that and I thought I could get back to sleep, but I just laid there tossing and turning. So I hope tonight I'll sleep well at least. And so, yeah, I sympathize, man. You're tough as nails, though. We know that you have to be a cyborg to get through. What's the word? I don't want to dox you. It wouldn't be doxing you if I just mentioned the word on the streets is that to get through med school, you have to be a cyborg. So I think it's OK if I say, if I mentioned med school, I'm not doxing you. I think that hopefully that doesn't. But yes, long story short, sharing your personal information. But Sigmund, he says, fantastic stuff. James, I was in heavy lurk mode just listening and watching chat. And in the dark with my clothing off. Man, Sigmund, any nasty guy says very text heavy. I made that last part up. He didn't say he was in the dark with his clothing off. But said very text heavy debate above my pay grade. That's funny. Sigmund, anywhere. Always glad you're here. Thanks for hanging out with us tonight. And Brooke Chavez says, hello. Thank you for saying hi. And oh, the Twitch chat. I'm so sorry I'm behind. We do have Twitch, you guys want to mention that. If you didn't know that, we are excited about it. Apparently people have found it useful because now I think it was like there are maybe like 20 something people tonight at most watching in the Twitch chat, which means like why is like more people are hanging out in the Twitch, which is great if that's useful. I'm so glad to hear it. And I believe it's useful because we have those dank emoticons made by Tepotzel in the Twitch chat. So I want to say hi, you and Twitch in the Twitch chat as well. Brooks Barrow, good to see you. Kai Reason, thanks for being with us. As well as, as I had mentioned, Tepotzel, good to see you. And Saffron, good to see you again. I love those emotes. They're looking dank. Thanks. I appreciate you doing that work that really helps us. And now, yeah, our Twitch, our Twitch has come a long way. Now we have those beautiful panels. They're tremendous panels, folks. You have to see them. And I'll mention if you haven't already seen our Twitch, I'm going to put that in the live chat of YouTube right now. Oops. Oh, never mind. Sorry, I just posted something in the YouTube chat that was accidentally. It was a message that I had sent to somebody earlier. And yes, I will be it is it is true. We have don't get me wrong. I've got nothing against dudes, believe it or not. I'm a dude, but I wish we had more female debaters and it's not that. I'm like trying to force it. But so if you're in the YouTube chat, it's embarrassing. I meant to put our Twitch link, but I just put a I accidentally posted my own message that said I was messaging Stephen Stina. And I was saying to Stephen, do you know of any female debaters? We haven't hosted that. We have not hosted that you've seen a non sec or Steve channel. We have way too many dudes on modern day debate all the time. Not trying to knock dudes. So dudes, I hope you don't feel offended. It's just that we do want it to be a mix of people from all over. So I think you guys aren't going to take that personally. I'm a dude. I'm not crying about it. So anyway, let me put our actual Twitch chat or Twitch link in the YouTube chat and then I do like to spell dude as D O O D. But and Anderson says it's the way of the net and debating channels. It's 80 20 dudes to do that. Yeah, I guess that's true. I mean, it might be the case that, you know, men for whatever reason. I'm not everybody if I if I ever inferred and I don't infer that it's if I ever imply that it's like biological, which I don't. But if I ever implied it's biological, people would go off the off the handle. So I have to say like maybe it's social. I don't know whatever the reason is. It does seem to be the case that men I get way more emails from men asking to debate than females. And so, like I said, I'm not saying anything to do with why that is, whether it be social or biological reasons. But it is. Yeah, it's just interesting how I wonder if it's a cross cultural thing. That'd be interesting. Like I'm trying to think of all of our if it was somebody from like the East, is it also the case that in the East? Let's see. Like, let's say we don't have a lot. We don't have too many guests from the East that have been like, oh, hey, can I come on and debate? Most of them have been men, but let's see. Is Alex Peterson, Alex Peterson. You can say almost anything you want in the chat. The reason that you're getting hassled by the mods is because you're copying and pasting stuff. We don't really like that as much. But also, of course, and Alex, I actually to be to your credit, I haven't seen you attack the guests or use hate speech. So we do appreciate that because those are the only rules that we really have. Defreak, thanks to your kind words, a great platform. General Ball's access. I'm offended. I'll be joining the modern debate hate group on Facebook tomorrow. It is true. I have not tried to break you guys. It is a little bit. I'll maybe brag a little bit because I don't. I mean, the thing is, I, you know, some people maybe would be discouraged and you might be sick. Oh, James, don't take it to heart. Don't worry. Like I'm kind of flattered by it. I'm a little encouraged because the moment people stop paying attention to us at modern debate, I'll be sad for real because it's the more the merrier. I love it. It's fun when we've got a lot of people here and people from different walks of life. It's a true melting pot. We've got a lot of people from all over the place in terms of their world views or positions and background. And I, so in other words, like I'm quite flattered by the fact that we do have, I don't run it. There's a group on Facebook called boycott modern debate that has hundreds of followers. Thank you. Thank you. I'm very proud of I'm not I'm not really proud because I never wanted anyone to hate modern debate. But like I said, when people start ignoring us, that's when I'll be more worried about that than a hate group on Facebook. A hate group makes me think or maybe that's uncharitable to them. Maybe they don't hate modern debate. They just want to boycott it. Whatever it is makes no difference to me. Whenever they stop paying attention to us, that would make me sad. That for real, because for me, I'm like, hey, we want to have an impact. And sometimes we're going to trigger people and it's not like we're purposely going for it, but it's inevitable with a debate channel. Now, if you didn't know, we are on your favorite podcast app, whether it be podcasts such as Stitch, Apple, Spotify or podcast addict, as you see right here on screen, we at Modern Day Debate are on podcast. So if you haven't checked us out yet, folks, pull out your favorite podcast app from your phone and look up. Type it in right now, Modern Day Debate, search for the podcast. Because we're really excited that again, people like apparently been finding that useful, which is encouraging. When I started the podcast, I was like, is anyone going to listen to this? And people really responded. Like now it's like in the first week, I think we're averaging over a thousand downloads in the first week, which I think I had read the other day because I was kind of like, is that I don't know if that's like, are we growing fast? My favorite podcast here in this little list here, you see, that's kind of the big four. Those are the four main podcasts that you see on screen that we get most downloads from from people. My favorite is podcast addict and all over Catwell, I know likes used to like podcast addict. And if I remember right, I think he switched to Google podcast, which we are on there as well. Now, with the podcast, it's really exciting that it's growing. And I looked it up, I was thinking, are we growing fast? Is this, you know, like, does this mean people are like actually liking it? Because I was thinking a thousand downloads compared to YouTube or, you know, the average video now gets like maybe 7000 views on YouTube. I don't know. And I was wondering, like, is this good? But apparently, I think that if I remember right, we're like in the top 5% of podcasts, like that there are, period, like top 5% of podcasts like in the world. No joke. If you have a thousand, I think it's if I remember right, if you have about a thousand podcasts in the first week, statistically, like you're already in the top 5% of podcasts, which is crazy. Which is so apparently the podcast is doing really well, I guess. I don't know. I mean, that's pretty exciting, though. I'm encouraged that people and so that's all credit to you, folks, for real. I really do appreciate your support. Thanks for all of your downloads of the podcast. Thanks for just all of your hanging out here and making it fun. And no, by the way, I saw in the chat, but yeah, I do want to give you guys credit. Thank you guys for making this channel rock. You guys make it fun. The more the merrier, that's what makes it fun. That's really seriously, that's what makes it a blast. There's a lot of people with different ideas and we just appreciate you. And Joshua, Alex says, did you just say dank? Yes, I did. That's like the first word I said when I was born. But want to mention, no, the group on Facebook, I think they're mad. They think that we're not hard enough. We're not hard enough on the Flat Earthers. They say, James, you got to come down harder. You got to like jump in and, you know, you know. And I'm like, hey, you know, if we're going to be fair, I can't jump in and, you know, confront the Flat Earthers either. I don't do the Globers or any other position. And so I, you know, we're pretty hands off. But also, though, no, so in other words, that's what the group had to do with. There are probably some, I won't say what political group or party, but there are some probably some in a particular political niche will say that probably I think they have this unholy alliance where they're like both some of these people that are angry about my treatment of the Flat Earth people as well as some people that politically they're angry about the fact that we platform some controversial people. They have this unholy alliance, they're strange bedfellows. And so, yeah, I'm excited, though. I mean, like I said, I am just so encouraged that we have our own hate group. And so pretty exciting guys and we're big steps, you know. So General Balzek says, really, just because of the Flat Earthers, they're harmless. That's what I say. Is that it's like, OK, well, like the Flat Earthers, if the Flat Earthers, if the Flat Earthers like I just I'm not a Flat Earther, I'll be honest. And I'm nothing against you if you're a Flat Earther. But I to me, I just I'm like, what if what if there is another Flat Earther in the world? First of all, I mean, that's granting that the Flat Earthers win the debate that they persuade more people. And that's, you know, up for debate. But let's say theoretically, it's like, oh, my goodness, like maybe there are more Flat Earthers, you have to also, by the way, sometimes people say they're like, well, there might be more Flat Earthers because of those debates. It's like, well, are you also counting the fact that there might become there might be more people who become Glovers as well? Because you have to factor that into the equation. You can't just pay attention to one direction. And but for real, that's the kind of like sometimes the responses I get from people very like it's like you don't seem like you've thought this through very much. But the other thing is even granting that anybody becomes a Flat Earther because of these debates, I'm like, I don't see it as that harmful if someone believes in a Flat Earther. I wouldn't recommend it because because we're a neutral platform, so we won't recommend any position. But I would just say, anyway, let's see. Joy Joyce are serious as blame, myth, vision, Derek told me to sub to modern day debate. Thanks for that, Joyce. Are you serious? That's really kind of you. And I, by the way, I had a great conversation with Derek back. I think it was December now. Man, time is like flying by like frightening because it feels like it was more recent. But last time I talked to Derek in December, I think it was. And I was like, Derek is like one of the most authentic, just chill, easygoing dudes. I'm like, man, I really do appreciate Derek. So I am just thankful that we got to kind of connect. And hopefully I can be more in touch with him in the future. And general ball sex is really just because of Flat Earthers. They're harmless, catching up with chat. But yeah, I mean, poor old pizza says, wait, this channel is considered a hate group. No, no, no, we've got a hate group that hates us. And then Richard Luonga says, little advice, James, never mute. Aran Ra always mute Nathan Thompson. Did I mute Aran that night? I don't think I don't remember muting Aran. I don't think I muted anybody. I think that's to I'll be I'll admit, you know, sometimes my hands off. Relatively hands off moderation. It doesn't always go perfectly well. Sometimes I have made mistakes, but I've got to say, we're super encouraged with the growth of the channel. So thank you guys for making it awesome and for making it grow. And you're subscribing and everything you do. That's just the encouraging thing, because it's been like encouraging that recently. It's like, oh, like we've been seeing a pretty big influx, which is encouraging. So thank you. Louis Presciato says, my first video I saw was Flat Earth Debate. During its Q&A, Professor Dave is one of the debaters. I had never seen a debate channel and was intrigued how you remain neutral. Thanks, Louis. That's encouraging. I love that we are a neutral channel. I just love doing this channel. It's a blast for me. And so it's encouraging and thank you for that. And let's see. Chai Reason, I see you there in the Twitch chat. And then Tabotso says, I can't pay attention to podcasts. And Chai Reason says, I just subscribed to the podcast. Well, thanks, Chai Reason for your support. I'm excited and I hope it's useful. I'm really big on podcasts. I love podcasts because it's just a great way to, for example, you can do it while you're cooking, while you're cleaning. I do it. I actually find it relaxing to clean. No joke and just listen to a podcast or something. So Chai Reason says, I want to see that debate. The debate about who won the debate. That's funny. Oh, you're right. That's funny. Tabotso says, most after shows are debates about who won the debates. That's funny. That may be the case. But Doubting Thomas says, Aaron likes beer like I do. It's OK. It's your channel. I honestly, I don't think I muted Aaron that night. I don't think I muted either of the guests. And I think that's kind of why it blew up. I wish I would have maintained a little bit more order. Oh, was it Brooks? Brooks says, I think Aaron was muted. So no wonder why are in a real worry. I'm going to try to warm up Aaron. I'll try to talk him into coming back. But I can tell you guys we're on the verge. We're like seriously so close. And it's been taking longer than usual to set up this debate. Our Kickstarter event next month is it's going to have someone. It's actually not Aaron, but it's going to have somebody who's going to come back to moderate debate and it's going to be so exciting. That's the plan. It hasn't been fully confirmed, but it's very close. And so thank you, everybody, though. And I like beer as well. Doubting Thomas, a good Bruce. He's nice. I wish I don't have any here. But man, if I had some here, I'd have one now. But general ball of sex is so darn. I would be trolling the heck out of these guys if I were you. Man, I kind of feel tempted. But so there's part of me that once in a while I even think about should I get into some of these little scuffles on Twitter? And some people have said, hey, yeah, get into a little brawl on Twitter. And I'm like, yeah, but, you know, it's like I also am kind of like, well. The challenge is I'm also like, well, I could be using time for that. But I could also be using the time to try to grow modern day debate, you know, trying to get new guests and stuff like that. And so I'm tempted to do it. But I don't know. You'll see. We'll see in the future. But yeah, we do appreciate you guys. I got to go. I got to get some sleep. Oh, my gosh, it's already 1037 here. So thank you guys. I love you guys. Thanks for all of your support of the channel. We do appreciate you. And so, yes, we are excited about the future. If you haven't yet, yeah, you guys, it's going to be absolutely epic. Do hit that subscribe button for more future debates, just like tonight's. We hope you enjoyed it. And so thanks, everybody. Keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable. And we'll be back tomorrow night, as I mentioned, folks, for that tag team debate, you don't want to miss it, folks. As we'll have Sibyl and T jump, a male and female team taking on another male and female team, Flatter-day Saint and his girlfriend. So that should be interesting, everybody. So thanks, everybody. Love you guys. Take care and keep sifting out the reasonable from the unreasonable.