Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome back to the sixth part of our series on the Elijah prophets and the second part on the Book of Daniel.

My task today, Yah willing, is twofold:

• 1. To prove, beyond any reasonable doubt, that the Book of Daniel is authentic history, and to thereby boost your confidence in the reliability of the Davar Elohim (Word of God); and
• 2. To expose the dishonesty of the sceptics to deliverately trying to cover up this evidence.

To enable me to do this I asked you to devote your private Bible time by reading through the Book of Daniel over the last week so that you will get the most out of what I have to share with you today. I am indebted primarily to the research work of Dr. William R.Cooper whose book, The Authenticity of the Book of Daniel, every congregation should possess with every Pastor and Gospel Teacher having ready access to it. You can order a copy from the Creation Science Movement (www.csm.org.uk) where you can get other excellent books by Dr.Cooper such as The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis, these two Bible books being the especial targets of the sceptics.

Last week we listed the many miracles described in the Book of Daniel which the critics, who do not believe in Elohim (God) or miracles - whether they be self-confessed atheists or liberal 'Christians' with one foot in atheism and the other in Christianity - both lambast and laugh to scorn. Last week I read you the introduction to the Book of Daniel in the Catholic Jerusalem Bible as being pretty representative of their position. Today and next week (as I am definitely going to need more than one sermon to do this), by the grace of Yahweh, we will start proving their claim to be entirely false. We will show that Daniel and his three friends are named in the contemporary cuneiform records of the very Babylonian Empire to which their people, the Judeans, has been exiled. Moreover, the authenticating evidence for the Book of Daniel has been known for many years and yet barely a mention of it has been made mention of to the public thanks to the machinations of the modernist scholars. Moreover, these records explain a number of 'mysteries' in the Scriptures making them become even more alive for believers.

The Book of Daniel was written in the 6th century BC, not in the second between 167 and 164 BC as claimed by the liberals. It is, as E.B.Pusey noted in 1886, perfectly suited to be "a battlefiled between faith and unbelief. It admits no half-measures. It is either Divine or an imposture". It is as much a book of history as it is of prophecy and can therefore be investigated as both. It's historical statements are bold and confident. Because there is so much history in it, had it been a work of fiction, there would have been plenty of witnesses around to thoroughly discredit it, something you just don't find. I don't doubt Daniel wrote it himself - there's no mention of his death, and there are no personal euologies as one would expect of the forger of a pseudepigraphical book. And yet one critic let his imagination run wild and has claimed there were as many as six forgers!

Consider the problem. If you're a forger you have got to write a book 400 years after the events described and you can't get one historical detail wrong. You have to be fluent in a particular form of the Imperial Aramaic as used between 700 and 300 BC and you have to have knowledge of Hebrew, Babylonian, and Old Persian. Fortunately there are many examples of actual forgeries and we'll pick one of them to illustrate; it's a 2nd century BC Jewish composition, from the time the alleged forger wrote Daniel. This document even speaks of the same King Nebuchadnezzar, making it all the more suitable as a comparison. It claims to be a work of actual history, even though it was written in Greek, and appears in the Catholic Apocrypha as the Book of Judith. I even cited it recently to you when we talked about Deborah and the women nevi'im (prophets). Yes, the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and many other old Churches have canonised a clear-cut case of forgery, and the Book of Judith isn't the only fake text they present as holy scripture! I'm going to read its opening sentence to you and ask you to tell me how many errors you can spot and which ones:

"In was the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled over the Assyrians in the great city of Nineveh" (Judith 1:1, NRSV).

That was from the Book of Judith. It was written in the Pharisee era of the inter-testamental period, after the authentic spirit of prophecy had disappeared from Judah owing to a quenching of the Ruach (Spirit) caused by apostacy, when lots of false 'scriptures' were written. There are two historical errors in the first line:

• 1. Nebuchadnezzar did not rule over the Assyrians but the Babylonians; and
• 2. Nebuchadnezzar's capital city was Babylon, not Nineveh.

Oh, but you may say, wasn't Assyria part of the Babylonian empire? Yes it was, but the city of Nineveh had been destroyed in 612 BC by Nebuchadnezzar's father, and was a heap of ruins inhabited only by wild animals. The Assyrian domain was quietly absorbed into Babylonian territory and never mentioned again thereafter. Indeed, Nebuchadnezzar had three royal titles:

• 1. The King of Babylon;
• 2. The King of Sumer and Akkad; and (for modesty's sake, no doubt),
• 3. King of the Universe.

The Book of Judith is, as Dr.Cooper calls it, "a thumping good yarn" with some good morals in it, but it isn't a work of history. The liberals of the Cambridge Bible Commentary (1972) are more generous, calling it an "historical novel". The first line proves it. Such errors as these in Judith 1:1 would kill the Book of Daniel off from the start. As the Davar Elohim (Word of God) claiming to be an accurate historical record of actual events, no such errors can be allowed.

The critics claim they have found three (and only three, mind you) 'loan words' in the text of Daniel, one of which is Greek, supposedly 'proving' it was written 400 years later (since most people in the Middle East spoke Greek at that time thanks to the various Helenic Empires of the times). All three of these words refer to musical instruments so they can never be used for dating purposes because musical terms and musical instruments can span many centuries without changing, like our modern word 'piano' (full name 'pianoforte') which has been around since the Italian Bartolomeo Cristofri invented it in the 1600's. The alleged Greek 'loan word' is symphonia which is the name of a Greek musical instrument and was also an early musical term regarding various instruments playing in unison and harmony, in other words, an orchestra. We still use the word 'symphony' today, 2,200 years later.

The critics tell a base lie when they claim such an instrument by that Greek name did not exist at that time even though Pythagoras speaks of it; and if they had read the Iliad written in 762 BC (13:731) and the Odyssey written in the 8th century BC (1:153) they would have seen that one of the other instruments named by Daniel, a type of harp called the kitharos, is mentioned 400-500 years before Daniel! So what, that Nebuchadnezzar was not Greek? The King was so besotted with Greek culture, and the Babylonians loved Greek music so much that we should not be surprised to find these instruments in the royal court. We know that Nebuchadnezzar employed Greek mercenaries and diplomats as early as 605 BC. Music was built into the Babylonian way of life, just as it is today. So what Nebuchadnezzar did in employing Greek musicians with their Greek instruments with their original Greek names was nothing out of the ordinary at all. Indeed, they were so passionate about their music that the navi (prophet) Isaiah that they and it would follow them all into hell:

"Your [Babylonian] pomp is brought down to Sheol ('hell'), and the sound of your harps; maggots are the bed beneath you and worms are your covering" (Isa.14:11, NRSV).

So why do the liberal critics persist in claiming these are 'loan words' from a later time when they were, in some cases, around for half a millennium before their alleged forgery? Because, as unbelievers with a world-view that denies the miraculous, they have to prove Daniel was written 400 years after the event or lose all credibility, and so they claim it's no more than a moral tale like the Book of Judith, a 'thumping good yarn'.

But irony of ironies, the Book of Maccabees, from the very time they claim Daniel was forged, actually makes mention of Daniel as though he were a well-known and well-loved historical person! Far from being invented at the time, Mattathias, the resistance leader against the Greek tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes, calls upon his sons to look to their Israelite ancestors, of whom Daniel is mentioned as one, and to follow their examples of courage and faith. Listen to this fiery speech:

"Elijah, because of great zeal for the Torah (Law), was taken up into heaven. Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishal (the Hebrew names of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego) believed and were saved from the flame. Daniel, because of his innocense, was delivered from the mouths of lions. And so observe, from generation to generation, that none of those who put their trust in [Yahweh] will lack strength" (1 Maccabees 2:58-61, NRSV).

And however much you may fault the Maccabees (which I often do) you cannot say they lacked courage or that they did not view the Book of Daniel as an ancient tribal heritage with the authority to inspire such courage. That speech, incidentally, was given in 166 BC, the year Mattathias spoke these words, and but one year after the cricics say Daniel was forged! Oh, come on! Do they really think we're that stupid? Of that a freshly made-up story would have been used with such confidence and authority and lead to incredible heroism? Would Batman inspire you to do some heroic deed?

Sometimes the critics date the supposed Daniel forgery as late as 164 BC - remember Mattathias died in 166 BC, two years before the alleged forgery. How could Mattathias recommend the example of Daniel and the three lads before the book had even been supposedly forged? These people are either idiots or take us to be idiots, gullible enough to swallow their pseudo-intellectual pie-in-the-sky hogwash. And yet these are supposed to be such brainy scholars. H.T.Andrews, who wrote the Daniel section for Peake's Commentary (here's my copy of it), excuses himself from discussing these 'loan words' with the likes of us plebians, by saying:

"It is not easy to make this point clear to those who are unacquainted with the original languages in which the Book [of Daniel] is written...These Greek words are used, and it is not at all likely that these words were known in Babylon as early as 550 BC" (1919, p.522).

In other words, since we don't speak Aramaic, Persian, Aramaic or Greek we just need to shut up and take their word. What condescending arrogance! It's the same excuse Moslems make when we criticise the Quran. They tell us we can't possibly understand because we don't speak Arabic, let alone the Qureshi dialect of their prophet, never mind that we quote from English translations and commentaries made by certified Moslem scholars! No. The men of the Maccabees were devoted Bible readers and fought to the death in its defence. Books like Daniel had been around long enough to inspire confidence in their historicity. They would not have been fooled either by a book that was only written the year before or - Yah forbid - two years after Mattathias gave his fiery speech quoting from a book yet to be written! What absurdity. The Maccabees, who were passionate about the Torah, could never have invented such a book and passed it off as genuine. What an insult to the ancients.

But the critics will not stop waggling their frothy tongues. They claim the Yehudi (Judahites) knew no Greek before 332 BC when Alexander the Great conquered Judea. Therefore, using their pea-brain logic, they say Daniel must have been written after 332 BC. So how do they explain the fact that the Book of Daniel was read out to Alexander the Great in 332 BC when he considered destroying Jerusalem? [1] It was because of what Daniel had prophesied concerning him that he grew afraid so that not only did he decide not to destroy Jerusalem but promised to protect the rights of the Judeans that he would find still living in Babylon when he got there because as you know, after the Captivity, many acculturated Yehudim (Judahites) decided not to returned to the Promised Land but to remain in the land of their captivity.

As if this is not enough for these brain-boxes, how come the 6th century navi (prophet) Ezekiel is able to mention Daniel when 'Daniel' had supposedly not even been invented until the 2nd century BC? (Ezek.14:14)? You see, Ezekiel was in Babylon at the same time Daniel was, though he came in the second wave of forced migrants 597 BC, and by the time Ezekiel got there, the fame of Daniel had already spread far and wide. To get round that one, the critics are forced to invent another Daniel, a Canaanite worshipper of Baal no less. Doesn't this remind you of the insane damage control flat-earthers are forced resort to every time they are proven wrong when they invent conspiracies so great that they would be impossible to maintain without someone blowing the whistle somewhere? Or of evolutionists when the data dismantles their crazy theory that 'nothing made everything out of nothing'? They strain credulity to the uttermost boundaries.

How about showcasing some evidence for Daniel's antiquity which no forger could have dreamed up? Forgers are not infallible when it comes to reinventing history which is why they usually get 'found out' at some point. Sir Robert Anderson, who was the police chief who led the investigations into the Whitechapel or Jack-the-Ripper murders in 1880's London, and who also wrote a really interesting investigative book on the history of the Book of Daniel, said that in any court of law in which the Book of Daniel was being tried, the modernist critics would at best be regarded as what is called a 'special witness': "He can supply but a part, and that by no means the most important part, of the necessary evidence. And if a single well-ascertained fact be inconsistent with his theories, the fact must prevail" [3]. Unfortunately, the critics have always mistaken their rôle and presume to speak as judge and jury too, for the obvious reason that their case is built on sand.

Quite coincidentally, I might add, someone with a very similar name and profession, whom I hugely admire, who was also knighted, Sir Norman Anderson [4], is well worth your attention too. He was Professor of Oriental Laws and Director of Advanced Legal Studies in the University of London. His book, Jesus Christ, the Witness of History [3], which I have here, was given to me on my birthday in 1985 when it was first published, and was instrumental in giving me a solid forensic basis for my faith in the authenticity of the Gospels, a reason I suppose I like detective stories like Poirot and Rumpole of the Bailey so much, to name two of many.

Back to the plot. You know, the Book of Daniel has been under attack from as far back as the 3rd century AD when the Phoenician neo-Platonist philosopher, Porphyry (AD 234-305) penned Against the Christians (Adversus Christianos). He was the one who actually first suggested Daniel was written in the Maccabee era, so the modern critics aren't even being original. They're borrowing an old idea long discredited. Theirs, as Dr.William Cooper puts it, is "an ancient grudge dressed up in modern garb" [2]. Quite so.

So, what facts are well-ascertained that would nullify the critics' accusations as 'special witnesses'? Well, for a start, let's look at the internal evidence for the Book of Daniel, evidence you probably wouldn't notice unless you were a sleuth like the two 'Sir Andersons' I just mentioned. Take Daniel 10:4, for instance:

"On the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was standing by bank of the great river (that is, the Tigris)..." (Dan.10:4, NRSV).

That wouldn't strike you as odd unless you checked the footnotes in some of your English Bibles. Most of them say this was the river "Tigris" but if you check the Hebrew the word used is Hiddekel. If you have the older American Standard Version (ASV), King James Version (KJV) or the Geneva Bible of 1560 (but not Tyndale/Coverdale) you'll still find "Hiddekel" in the main text though I am glad to say one or two modern Messianic versions like the ISRV (and the copycat Halleluyah Scriptures), the Aleph-Tav Old Testament (ATOT) and the Messianic Aleph-Tav Scriptures (MATS) use it. (Interestingly and usefully the Septuagint/LXX puts both names in, viz. "Tigris-Eddekel").

Why is that interesting to the forensic scientist and sleuth? Because the Persians knew the river as the Tigra and the Greeks knew it as the Tigris. In English we still use the Greek form all these thousands of years later and so you will see the same name in all our English atlases. It's the same in my Swedish atlases. And the translators are perfectly within their rights to use the name with which we are familiar. However - and this is the point - no post-Persian Greek-speaking Maccabean forger of Daniel would have used the river's ancient Hebrew name, any more than we do! Why? Because his readers wouldn't have known what he was talking about (nor would the alleged forger, probably), in the same way that I guarantee that none of you, unless you were a specialist historian, would know what I was talking about if I called Kiev or Kiy'iv, the capital of the modern Republic of Ukraine, by the ancient Viking name of Känugård, even though we are here in Sweden. Most Swedes likely don't know that either so if you mentioned the city of 'Känugård' they would think you were talking about some place in Sweden.

So why did Daniel use the ancient Hebrew Hiddekel when he was writing in the reign of Cyrus? It's only used in one other place, by Moses, in Genesis 2:14, describing one of the four rivers of Eden, a name that would have been used by the ancient Akkadians who called it ad Idikla, a cognate of Hiddekel. So this was its ancient name. But to everyone who came after Daniel, including the Maccabees and us, the river bore the name 'Tigris'. Thus Daniel was the last to have used the Hebrew name. Had the Book of Daniel been forged, the writer would have written 'Tigris' for sure.

We don't have time to go through dozens of other examples which really you need to take together as a whole to make a water-tight case in a court of law, and I am running short of time, so I am going to restrict myself to just three or four more items, and then we'll continue next week. I refer you now to Daniel 5:2 where Balshazzar throws a party and brings out the sacred vessels taken from the Jerusalem temple. What is significant is that women were present under the Babylonians but they weren't allowed to be under the Persians. You may remember the Persian Queen Vashti had to be specially summonsed by King Ahasuerus (Esther 1:8-9).

What's important is that had Daniel been written in the days of the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes (around 167 BC), it would mean that it would have been produced under one of the worst persecutions of the Yehudi (Judahites) ever. Yet the Babylonians, who according to the liberal critics are a thinly disguised representation of the Greeks in their fake Book of Daniel, were in reality quite benevolent. After all, didn't Nebuchadnezzar value the Yehudim (Judahites) that he promoted four of them to the highest posititions in government? (We'll see the documentary evidence for that next time). So how would the Maccabees reading this forged Book of Daniel have been inspired them to resist Aniochus more valiantly? Would you have been inspired in that way reading Daniel? I read the book for the miracles and the prophecies, not for inspiration in times of persecution. It doesn't add up, does it?

What about the alleged Persian 'loan words' in the Book of Daniel? Fortunately the critics' own clan of scholars has debunked this claim since it turns out the Persian words in the text are in reality 'Old Persian', pre-dating even the Babylonian Empire of Nebuchadnezzar by a few centuries. You might not think that is significant but just you try and speak English as it was spoken, say, 600 years ago, or Middle English as the scholars know it as, which would approximately be what Old Persian was to the Persian spoken in the days of the Maccabees:

Nevertheless these so-called 'Persian' words were trumpeted by the liberals as evidence that the Book of Daniel was of late authorship. No longer, it would seem. It's a moot point now as the matter was settled by their own academic kith and kin in favour of Daniel being a 6th century BC work.

Next. For those of you who are mathematicians you're going to find the next area of evidence for Daniel being a 6th century BC text interesting I hope. The ancient Babylonians uses a sexagesimal system. Unlike us who use the decimal system based on 10's, these people based their mathematics on the number 60 going way back to the ancient Sumerians around 3,000 BC. This ancient way still survives in the way we divide time into 60 seconds in a minute and 60 minutes in an hour, as well as the way we measure angles (a full turn being 360°). Suffice to say (without turning this into a science lecture), Daniel used this sexagesimal system, as you would expect in Babylon, in his description of the measurements of Nebuchadnezzar's image in Daniel 3:1, because that's how it would have been measured then. But how would the alleged Maccabean forger have known this? For 400 years the Persians and Greeks had used the decimal system as we do today. How many of you remember the old British Imperial Units that I used 50 years ago? How many of your grand and great grand children will even know about the Imperial System of pounds/shillings/peace, pounds/ounces, and inches/feet/yards? (Only the USA, Liberia and Myanmar still use this old system of weights and measures). So here we have yet more evidence that no Maccabee forged Daniel.

Next item. Daniel 8:2 mentions the royal palace at Shushan which in the 6th century BC belonged to the nation of Elam but not in the 2nd century BC nor 3 centuries before that. In Daniel's day it was the capital of the Province of Susiana. How many of you know such details in the history of your own countries 300 or 400 years ago? How many of you Americans know about the US former states of Jefferson, Texlahoma, Absaroka, South California, Deseret and Franklin? Chances are if you were to write a piece of historical fiction around the time and in the places these states existed, you'd get your history quite wrong. Historical fiction is really hard to write, especially the farther back in time you go!

These are all details, of course, but as Sir Robert Anderson pointed out, one fact trumps a 'special witness' like the stuff churned out by the liberal 'higher critics'. One thing that cannot be hidden or erased is the fact that the Pharisees during Yah'shua's (Jesus') trial held up the Book of Daniel as genuine Scripture. Indeed, they got really upset with the Saviour when He quoted Daniel 7:13 and applied it to Himself:

"Yah'shua (Jesus) said to the [Cohen Gadol (High Priest)], 'You have said so (concerning their question, was He the Son of Elohim/God?). But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven'" (Mt.26:64, NRSV).

"I (Daniel) was watching in the night visions, and behold, one like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven! He came to the Ancient of Days (Yahweh), and they brought Him near before Him" (Dan.7:13, NKJV).

Let's put that into a time perspective. The aged Simeon, who held the infant Messiah in his arms at His Temple Dedication (Lk.2:25-35), would have been old enough to have spoken to the elders who had actually known Judas Maccabæus. The Pharisees being the kind of meticulous people they were, if they had entertained the slightest doubt about the Scriptural authority, antiquity and authenticity of the Book of Daniel, they would have been aware of it as their grandfathers would have been and, for that matter, as would Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself. And as you know, the Master endorsed the whole Tanakh (Old Testament), the oldest known copy of which in the Dead Sea Scrolls (dating to about 150 BC) consisted all of the books in our Protestant canon, including the Book of Daniel, but minus the Book of Esther.

Let me make one last mention of the ancient Septuagint (LXX) or Greek translation of the Tanakh (Old Testament) translated around 280 BC, which is before the time the liberal critics allege the forgery of the Book of Daniel between 167 and 164 BC. In case you have never looked at a copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls, or which I have a copy here, there is the Book of Daniel written down in all its glory, 120 years before these critics claim it was actually written!

The Book of Daniel is very, very special. It was written in both Hebrew and Aramaic, just like the Book of Ezra [5] with a solitary Aramaic verse found in Hebrew Jeremiah 10:11 [6]. Know this, that there was only one period in the entire history of Israel when Aramaic and Hebrew were used together in the same books of the Bible, and that was when? Can anyone guess? Yes, the 6th century BC! It has never occurred at any other time. If that does not date the Book of Daniel, then I don't know what else does.

So who are these men, these self-appointed 'higher critics', so-called? Are they just stupid (in which case they should not be in academia) or are they just plain dishonest (in which case they have no business speaking authoritatively on anything)? I have no problem with people who hold different opinions to my own so long as they have integrity. I have no problem with people who hold different world-views to my own either provided, again, they are sincere and consistent, and are willing to honestly face the evidence. In science, the factual evidence is what leads, not the theory, the same way police work is supposed to be done. But frankly I have little or no time for those who have an agenda of destruction who are fundamentally lacking in honour and decency.

You'll be shocked by just how extensive the conspiracy of these men is in either their silence or downright distortion. And as we continue in this study, you'll see it gets much worse, especially when Daniel and his friends appear in the pagan records of Babylon multiple times. It's the same dishonesty we find in the scientific field of the Origins of Life where Intelligent Design is strictly verboten because these priests of materialism have decided out of hand that there is nothing more than physical matter in this universe, all the evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Now we have only scratched the surface today. My purpose has been to get your appetite going for more. I invite you to read Dr.Cooper's book if you want the proof of what I am trying to summarise today. Those of you in MLT here can just ask to borrow my copy. I realise that for some of you this sort of thing may be tedious but the defence of the truth in an increasingly sceptical and hostile post-Christian, postmodernist world is at stake here, just as it is in the secular world today in politics, medicine, philosophy and in numerous other disciplines that combine to make up the civilisation we must all live in, work in, and interact in. The tragedy is that people just don't even know how to think anymore because they're no longer taught logic because their professors weren't either. The dumbing-down in education is becoming quite serious. It seems to me that the whole of the post-Christian world is going through a mass psychosis event. The Internet is a mine of sound information to be sure but it lacks system, though we really should not expect anything more of it if we want to retain its freedom. It's also jam-packed with misinformation and outright lies that you could potentially get completely lost in. You need to be instructed by bona fide Christian/Messianic teachers and scholars who can be questioned without fear of riddicule or censorship, and to read good books, of course.

We are all witnesses to the truth in our own way and according to our own skills, but the more arrows of knowledge and truth you can fit into your quivver, the more effective a witness you can become. And if you're not very skilled at that sort of thing, you will at least be in a better position to point investigators to others who are. Many have been my tutors and will continue to be.

I still firmly believe in an admonition I gave to our people back at the beginning of the 1990's when we were evangelising in Denmark. It remains axiomatic of what a New Covenant Christian or Messianic Evangelical is. Paraphrasing, I told a Conference there, that 'our lay people need to be better informed that your average liberal Lutheran pastor'. That's why we have created our enormous website. To do this obviously requires work and commitment, but your confidence will grow and you will be able to share in the joy of leading souls to salvation because your labour in a particular area was what was needed to help that enquirer get past an obstacle to belief. Sometimes may believers are required to help the unbeliever claimb back up the staircare from atheism or agnosticisim and into living emunah (faith).

Start early. People are amazed because I have all this information at my fingertips but I'm really nobody very special. The difference between me and most of my peers at university was while they wasted their time going to the pub, or playing sports, partying, or pursuing whatever interests took their fancy (today it would be wasting hours doing futile things online, I suppose) I pursued those things which would build my faith and the faith of others. Though I was studying for a degree in Biochemistry at University College, Oxford, I also enrolled for a course in Biblical Hebrew at an Anglican Seminary called Wycliffe Hall, and also attended the University's theological lectures to learn about the Dead Sea Scrolls, and while doing that befriended one of the leading experts, the Hungarian Jewish scholar, Dr.Geza Vermes. What I picked up from him and others like him helped me see through the deception of the Masoretes whose mutilation of the Tanakh (Old Testament) is used in practically all English Bible translations. I could have done 'other things' but I do not regret the choice I made. It has given me a confidence, and translated faith in many things into sure knowledge. We all have giftings that need daily exercise, and it is my prayer that I have been able to bless others in some small way.

I'm not saying you should all become theologians, of course. What I am saying is, invest your time in Yahweh by developping the skills you already have for witnessing. Spend quality time with your Bible every day, dig deeply into it. Our sole goal should be building the Kingdom - helping people come to salvation and growing in their discipleship, as Christ commanded: "Seek first the kingdom of Elohim (God) and His righteousness" (Mt.6:33, NKJV). A friend of mine, who shares my Christian name, cultivated his skills as an organist and has a successful ministry witnessing through his music and sharing Gospel anectodes. I like to think we inspire one another (I don't think he realises, actually, how important his ministry has been to me personally).

Next week we will continue with the Book of Daniel. I was overly optimistic to imagine I could do it all today in one sermon. Then we'll take a break for the vitally important Passover Season this year because of the imminent arrival Penultimate Jugdment, which is a key happening in the Final Exodus leading to the equipping of the Elijah Prophets, and hopefully come back to this study after that. Yahweh bless your week ahead, stay strong in the faith, ask Yahweh how He wants you to better invest your time in Him, and resume the spiritual adventure! Grace and peace in Yah'shua (Jesus). Amen.

Endnotes

[1] Josephus, Antiquities, Book 11.8.5
[2] Bill Cooper, The Authenticity of the Book of Daniel (Creation Science Movement, UK: 2012), p.13
[3] Sir Robert Anderston, Daniel in the Critics' Den (Cosimo Classics, repr.: 2007), p.ix
[4] Sir Norman Anderson, Jesus Christ: The Witness of History (Intervarsity Press, Leicester, England: 1985)
[5] In Aramaic from Ezra 4:8-6 and 7:12-26
[6] Interpreters Dictionary of the Bible, Vol.1/5 (Abingdon Press, Oxford: 1962), p.185

Acknowledgments

[1] Harry Mowvley, Guide to Old Testament Prophecy (Lutterworth Press, Guildford & London: 1979)
[2] John Bright, A History of Israel, 3rd ed. (SCM Press, London: 1982)
[3] Bernhard W.Anderson, The Living World of the Old Testament, 2nd ed., 5th impression (Prentice Hall, Hew Jersey: 1976)
[4] E.W.Heaton, The Hebrew Kingdoms - New Clarendon Bible (OUP, Oxford: 1968)
[5] G.W.Anderson, The History and Religion of Israel - New Clarendon Bible (OUP, Oxford: 1976)
[6] Peter R.Ackroyd, Israel under Babylon and Persia - New Clarendon Bible (OUP, Oxford: 1979)
[7] D.S.Russel, The Jews from Alexander to Herod - New Clarendon Bible (OUP, Oxford: 1978)
[8] D.Winton Thomas (ed.), Documents from Old Testament Times (Harper & Row, NY: 1961)
[9] Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (SPCK, London: 1978), translated from the German, Die Welt der altorientalischen Bildsymbolik und das Alte Testament: Am Veispiel der Psalmen (Köln: 1972)
[10] Clifford M.Jones (ed.), Old Testament Illustrations - The Cambridge Bible Commentary on the New English Bible (CUP, Cambridge: 1971)
[11] Matthew Black & H.H.Rowley (eds.), Peake's Commentary on the Bible (Van Nostrand Reinhold, Wokingham, England: 1982)
[12] Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2 vols (SCM Press, London: 1975), translated from the German, Teologie des Alten Testamentes: Die Teologie der historischen Überlieferungen Israels (München: 1957)
[13] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the Whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007)
[14] Bill Cooper, The Authenticity of the Book of Daniel (Creation Science Movement, UK: 2012)

Comments from Readers