Actions of this Syrian King, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, are foretold over 350 years in advance by Daniel’s God Yahweh, revealing them to his prophet for recording in Daniel 8:9-12, 23-25; 11:21-39. These visions are so extremely accurate in prophetic detail that critics, doubters and unbelievers claim that it is impossible that Daniel could have recorded them “in the first year of Darius the Mede”, which was in 537-536 BCE (Daniel 11:1 NIV), or “in the third year of Belshazzar” (Daniel 8:1 NIV), which was about 551 BCE.

The brilliant Neo-Platonic Greek philosopher of the 3^rd century CE, Porphyry, produced a work “AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS” in 15 volumes, recognizing Jesus Christ as an outstanding philosopher, but disagreeing with Jesus that Daniel was actually the author of Daniel. Porphyry couldn’t believe such an accurate prophecy, especially that part concerning Antiochus IV Epiphanes, was possible, and labeled Daniel as history written in the 100’s CE, but masquerading as prophecy written 350-400 years previously.

Daniel had been transported to Babylon as a young exile in 605 BCE, and lived there the rest of his long life. Ezekiel was transported also as an exile to Babylon 8 years later, in 597 BCE (Ezekiel 1:1-3). So, Daniel and Ezekiel were contemporaries in Babylon for some years. The Book of Ezekiel is accurately dated as recording events from 593 BCE to 571 BCE. The prophet Daniel is named three times as a very righteous man with divinely provided wisdom (Ezekiel 14:14,20; 28:3). This is powerful evidence that the Book of Daniel was written by God’s prophet Daniel in the 500’s CE, exactly as the Bible claims! Further proof of Daniel’s authenticity are the 8 Dead Sea scrolls of Daniel that have been dated to around 125 CE, not nearly enough time to have been transported the 300 miles to the Qumran community. Linguistic evidence from the Dead Sea scrolls also demonstrates that the Hebrew and Aramaic chapters of Daniel must have been written centuries earlier. Several of the fulfillments of Daniel’s prophecies could not have taken place by the 100’s CE anyway, so the prophetic element cannot be dismissed, even if it was written is the 100’s CE (which it wasn’t). For example, the symbolism connected to the 4^th kingdom makes it unmistakably predictive of the Roman empire (Daniel 2:40-43; 7:7,19), which didn’t take control of Syro-Palestine until 63 BCE. Some of the technical terms that appear in Daniel 3 were already so obsolete by the 2^nd century BCE that the translators of the LXX incorrectly translated them.