Continue with: PAY ATTENTION TO GOD'S PROPHETIC WORD FOR OUR DAY

On Trial!

Imagine yourself in a court of law, attending a trial. The prosecuting attorney insists that the defendant is guilty of fraud. Well, the book of Daniel presents itself as an authentic work written by a Hebrew prophet who lived during the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.E. However, critics assert that the book is a fraud. So let us first see if the narrative portion of the book  harmonizes with historical fact.

Suppose we consider what might be called the case of the missing monarch. Daniel chapter 5 shows that Belshazzar was ruling as king in Babylon  when that city was overthrown in 539 B.C.E. Critics have challenged this point because Belshazzar's name was found nowhere outside the Bible. Instead, ancient historians identified Nabonidus as the last Babylonian king. 

In the year 1854, however, some small clay cylinders were unearthed in the ruins of the ancient Babylonian city of Ur in present-day Iraq. These cuneiform documents included a prayer in which Nabonidus referred to "Bel-sar-ussur, my eldest son." Even critics had to agree: This was the Belshazzar of the book of Daniel. So the missing monarch was not missing after all, just not yet known in secular sources. This is only one of many proofs that the writings of Daniel are truly authentic. Such evidence shows that the book of Daniel surely is part of God's Word that merits our careful attention right now, in the time of the end.  

Woven into the fabric of the book of Daniel are prophecies involving the march of world powers and the acts of some of their rulers. One of the rulers might be called a warrior who built an empire. As Babylon's crown prince, he and his army shattered the forces of Egyptian Pharaoh Necho at Carchemish. but a  message compelled the victorious  Babylonian  prince to leave mopping-up operations to his generals. Learning that his father, Nabopolassar, had died, this young man name Nebuchadnezzar too the throne in 624 B.C.E. During his  43-years reign, he built an empire that embraced territories once occupied by Assyria, and he extended his domain into Syria and Palestine down to the border of Egypt.

Next time: Continue with: PAT ATTENTION TO GOD'S PROPHETIC WORD FOR OUR DAY-The Trial!

From the Watchtower magazine, 2000