Daniel 2: Biblical Prophecy and the reliability of Scripture

       The Best Argument for Christianity and the Bible part 1

by Robert K. Janko

Unbelievers often challenge Christians to give them evidence for the existence of God and for the validity of their religion. I, now, am going to be discussing two of the most convincing arguments that prove Christianity to be true. The first part of the article will be looking at Biblical prophecies and their fulfilments specifically a prophecy from the book of Daniel and revelation. The second part will be about the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Hope you will find it helpful when dealing with Atheists, Muslims, Agnostics etc...

1,  Biblical prophecies confirm the inspiration of the Holy Bible and the existence of God


In the Holy Bible, we read:  "Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, (Isaiah 46:9) "

God here is making a very bold claim. He says, there is NO ONE like Him. The obvious question we then need to ask is "why isn't there anyone like God?". Well, the verse next verse in the same chapter will tell us the answer. "Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure (Isaiah 46:10)"
So, the reason God gives to back up His claim from verse 9 is that He is able to tell what is going to happen in the future. It makes good sense though, as if we believe that God exist outside of time then it makes sense that He is able to tell in advance what's going to happen.

Having established this, we now proceed to investigate if there are any prophecies in the Bible that would confirm this claim from Isaiah 46:9.

Unsurprisingly, there are NUMEROUS prophecies in both the OLD and NEW testaments that can be cited in support of God's unique ability to tell the future.
 Biblical prophecies from the books of Daniel and Revelation:

1, Daniel chapter two: The king of Babylon has a dream one night and in the morning he is troubled as he cannot remember the dream. In those ancient cultures, dreams had great importance and so the king decided to call all the magicians, astrologers, sorcerers in hope that they might be able not only to interpret his dream but to tell what the dream was about as the king had forgotten it. Seeing the absurdity of the king's desire they said to the king "The Chaldeans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can shew the king's matter: therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. (Daniel 2:10)".
They further said
" it is a rare thing that the king requires, and there is none other that can show it before the king, except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh. or this cause the king was angry and very furious, and commanded to destroy all the wise men of Babylon. And the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain; and they sought Daniel and his fellows to be slain. (Daniel 2:11-13)

The magicians realised that it was impossible for them what the king had dreamt so they told the king that no man can tell such thing. Humans don't have the ability to know the thoughts of others (Thank God) so the king got angry and commanded that all the wise man in Babylon be killed. Verse 13 specifically mentions a person called Daniel. He was a young Jewish boy who had been taken to Babylon as captive when King Nebuchadnezzar conquered Jerusalem. In Daniel Chapter one we read that Daniel had been educated in Babylon and became one of the wise man in the empire due to his excellent talents. He was a faithful believer in the God of the Jews and so He did not conform to the ways of the Babylonians. To cut the long story short, He told the king that if he was given time he would be able to find out what the king's dream was. He came together with his three Jewish friends and prayed to their God that He would make known to them the dream. Sure enough, God gave them the king's dream together with the interpretation. We can read the actual dream in Daniel 2:31-34. It says "Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible.  This image's head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass,  His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Thou sawest till that a stone was cut out without hands, which smote the image upon his feet that were of iron and clay, and brake them to pieces" 

 



As you can see, different parts of the body are made up of different types of metals. They all represent something and have a meaning.
Having seen and read the actual dream, it's now time to go and read the interpretation of all this because at the moment it does not seem like anything amazing let alone something that would be appealing to someone who does not believe in God or the Bible.

Daniel 2:36-38 "This is the dream; and we will tell the interpretation thereof before the king. Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven hath he given into thine hand, and hath made thee ruler over them all. Thou art this head of gold."

We now have the interpretation of the first part of the image. When Daniel says "Thou are this head of gold" he is speaking to Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon. So the "head of gold" symbolises the Kingdom of Babylon  with its head as King Nebuchadnezzar.

Let us now continue on with the interpretation and let's read what the breast and arms of silver and the thighs of brass symbolise. Daniel 2:39 "And after thee shall arise another kingdom inferior to thee, and another third kingdom of brass, which shall bear rule over all the earth." Verse 39 begins by saying that "after thee shall arise another kingdom" and then a third which is represented by the brass on the image. By implication the "another" kingdom is the one that is symbolized by silver. So far we have seen 3 kingdoms mentioned.

1. Babylon
2. "Another kingdom after thee"
3. A Third kingdom

In addition to this, we still have parts of the image that we still have not seen the interpretation of.
Daniel 2:40 "And the fourth kingdom shall be strong as iron: forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things: and as iron that breaketh all these, shall it break in pieces and bruise.  "
We now have the interpretation of the legs on iron and we see that it will be another 4th kingdom.

We now have an outline of the prophecy :

1. Kingdom of Babylon
2. "another kingdom after thee"
3. a third kingdom
4. fourth kingdom

The prophecy predicted the rise and fall of four WORLD RULING EMPIRES as it says in verse 39 that they "shall bear rule over all the earth". The prophecy was written during the period that the kingdom of Babylon ruled the world and it stated that it would not rule forever but that it would be taken over by another kingdom. It further prophesized that the second kingdom (the one after Babylon) would also be taken over by a third kingdom and that by a fourth.
All we need to do now is to check whether HISTORY confirms this or not.

According to History, Babylon was a glorious kingdom that was defeated and conquered by the Medo-Persian Empire. Medo-Persia then was conquered by the Greek Empire under the leadership of Alexander the Great. Alexander's empire however did not stay in power forever as we all know. They were defeated by the pagan Roman Empire.
What is incredible about this prophecy is that each kingdom  discussed above  were GREAT kingdoms with enormous power. To suggest that the kingdom of Babylon would fall into the hands of an inferior nation (verse 39)  would have seem absurd and ridiculous. It would have been the equivalent of saying that America today will be taken over by Holland or Hungary or any of these "small" countries.

Notice, the prophecy's take however on the fall of the fourth empire. Notice it DOES NOT SAY "after that shall arise a FIFTH kingdom". The prophecy, very interestingly, did not say that this fourth kingdom would be taken over by ANOTHER empire.
So, what did the prophecy say about the rule and fall of this kingdom? Was it to rule the world forever? Let's find out what the prophecy says and then see if HISTORY will confirm or disprove the Biblical account.

Daniel 2:41 "And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters' clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay."

Interestingly, the Bible predicted that the Roman Empire would NOT be defeated by someone but rather that it would be DIVIDED.  Everyone who has studied the fall of Rome knows that the empire started to decline and as a result the emperor Diocletian divided the Roman Empire to two. So the Roman Empire became divided into Western-Roman Empire and Eastern-Roman Empire in AD 284. For more information on the fall of Rome go on this website: http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/fall_of_ancient_rome.htm

Amazingly, the prophecy has proven to be true. It said that Babylon would not rule the world forever in spite of its greatness but that it would be conquered by another empire, the Medo-Persians and it did. It predicted that Medo-Persia would likewise be taken over and be defeated,by another kingdom which was Greek empire, and it did. It further stated that Greek empire would also fall and be defeated by another empire, which was the Romans, and it DID. Finally, it said that Rome would NOT be defeated but that it would be DIVIDED and remain up until the end of time. (The stone from the dream would "smote the image upon his feet " verse 34 which refers to the end of time when God will set up His kingdom which would never FALL.Daniel 2:44-45) ) ALL of this was written down hundreds of years prior to the events of the prophecy.

This has been a short and brief study on the second chapter from the book of Daniel. I will also be writing an article in defence of the historicity of the book of Daniel and specifically this prophecy which will be dealing  with some of the objections to the prophecy.

Look out for parts 2 and 3 of this series!!!