How can we understand the different dates in Haggai & Daniel about King Darius?

Question

Haggai 1

[1]In the second year of Darius the king, on the first day of the sixth month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying,

Daniel 5:29-31

[29]Then Belshazzar gave orders, and they clothed Daniel with purple and put a necklace of gold around his neck, and issued a proclamation concerning him that he now had authority as the third ruler in the kingdom. [30]That same night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. [31]So Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two.

According to the (Bible Timeline)the 2nd year of Darius reign was around 538BC in Daniel 5,but in Haggai 1 the 2nd year of Darius reign was around 520BC.

How can we reconcile this supposed contradiction?

Answer 1

• For starters, Darius the Mede and Darius the Great might not even be the same person.

Assuming that they are, as you certainly seem to, we run into another problem:

Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of sixty-two.

• This would mean right about the time of his death, around 490-485 BC, since he was born around 550 BC, and lived for about 65 years.

• Belshazzar (Balthazar), on the other hand, disappeared from history around 540 BC, when Darius the Great would have been roughly ten years of age.

the second year of Darius the King

King of what, exactly ? I ask this because these great kings ruled over many regions, acquired at different times (see, for instance, the various titles of Cyrus the Great, ancestor of Darius the Great, born around 600 BC, making him about 60 years old in 540 BC — wait a second — could he, by any chance, be the one mentioned in Daniel's fifth chapter ? Names, after all, are known to run in families).

Answer 2

Darius the Mede and Cyrus of Persia are 2 separate and distinct persons we see this in Daniel 6:28 (all Bible nasb)

28 So this Daniel enjoyed success in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

However, the Medes and the Persians banded together to overthrow Babylon in Daniel as shown in Daniel 5:25-28 the kingdom was divided into both

25 “Now this is the inscription that was written out: ‘MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN.’ 26 “This is the interpretation of the message: ‘MENE’—God has numbered your kingdom and put an end to it. 27 “ ‘TEKEL’—you have been weighed on the scales and found deficient. 28 “ ‘PERES’—your kingdom has been divided and given over to the Medes and Persians.”

In Daniel 7:1 Darius is of Median descent

1 In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of Median descent, who was made king over the kingdom of the Chaldeans—

Shortly after this, Cyrus of Persia took full control and so too did the Persians.

Darius of Persia was the son of Hystaspes and was of Persian descent.

Darius the Mede was likely out by 539 BC, then Cyrus of Persia 539-530, then Cambyses 530-522, then the magi or Cambyses brother reigned for 6 months and then Darius Hystaspes 522-485BC. This is Darius of Persia from Haggai, Zechariah and Ezra he was of Persian descent.

Ezra 4:24: Then work on the house of God in Jerusalem ceased, and it was stopped until the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia.

Here’s a list of the kings of Persia which Darius the Mede was not included: http://www.farsinet.com/iranbibl/kings.html

So in short Daniel’s Darius is the Mede son Ahasuerus. The other Darius, Persian son of Hystaspes.

Answer 3

There happen to be two versions of the Greek text for the book of Daniel (Old Greek & Theodotion) , and the NETS project has graciously provided side-by-side English translations of both.

The NETS preface to the book of Daniel says this about chapters 4-6:

A detailed comparison of the Greek texts in Daniel 4–6 reveals that less than 19% of any of the vocabulary of TH agrees with the OG. However, when the vocabulary is similar, about 83% of it is exact. Agreements are so few that it is clear that TH is not a revision of the OG in these chapters. At the same time, given the high percentage of verbatim agreements despite the low frequency of shared readings overall, the only reasonable explanation is that the majority of these agreements are due to textual corruption of the OG with TH readings. Indeed, numerous passages can be isolated where there are double translations in the OG that include the reading of TH.

The fact that in places the OG has both its own reading and the TH reading, suggests to me that the OG is similar to our modern versions of Greek texts that have alternatives bracketed alongside the version's preferred variation. The TH, it would appear, has rationalised the OG text, and among other things, has dropped the additional material.

So, which text is right?

For me, if there is a choice, then a passage that produces inconsistencies should be discarded in favour of the one that doesn't. That's not to say one text should be held superior to the other, but that when a problem arises choose the text that resolves it. Why would anyone choose in favour of inconsistencies?

Having said that, the Theodotion version of Daniel 5:30-31 has this ...

³⁰In that very night Baltasar, the Chaldean king, was killed. ^31(6.1)And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being sixty-two years old.

..., which is pretty-much what is found in the Hebrew. However, the Old Greek version has this:

³⁰And the meaning ¹ came upon Baltasar the king, and the rule was taken away from the Chaldeans and was given to the Medes and to the Persians, ^31(6.1)and Xerxes, who was king of the Medes, received the kingdom.

So, the OG doesn't declare Belshazzar died on the same night that Daniel was honoured by him for interpreting the writing on the wall. Thus the contradiction disappears.

Someone might argue that the OG differs from the MT (Masoretic Text), so it should be discarded for that reason. But the OG is much older than the MT, and since the sense of the MT is the same as the TH, then the TH is likely the source of the MT.

Again, asserting the superiority of the TH/MT over the OG as far as this passage is concerned, is choosing in favour of inconsistency. Why would anyone do so?

Conclusion

There is no contradiction if one takes the very hermeneutic approach of making use of all the data available for interpreting a text.

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NOTES:

1. NETS has rendered the Greek τὸ σύγκριμα as "the meaning", but according to the Koine Greek Lexicon, σύγκριμα can mean "judgment/decree". So, given the context, a better translation of the Greek would be, "And judgment came upon Baltasar the king ..."

Answer 4

After the fall of Babylon to the Medo-Persians in 539 BC, Cyrus was appointed king of the entire Babylon Empire. In 539 BC, Cyrus appointed Darius as king over the Babylon Empire. Also, in 538 BC, Cyrus issued his decree for the return of the Jews to the holy lands. It was not until 522 BC that this same Darius became king of the Medo-Persian Empire.

Answer 5

Prove Darius and Koresh are Darius I and Xerxes:

• Several translators concluded verse 5:31 actually is verse 6:1 (1). Furthermore, the book of Daniel doesn't mention how much time did pass between the chapters 5 and 6. Therefore chapter 6 starts with a new episode at a possibly much later time.

• The Persian king's title changed with Xerxes from "king of the Babylonians/Chaldeans" to "king of the Persians and the Medes" (2). This change also is visible in the book of Daniel. There is only one choice therefore: the Persian kings in the book of Daniel are Darius I (522-486 BC) and Xerxes (486-465 BC) (grandson of Cyrus the Great).

Extra confirmations for the above identifications are:

Similar to how Darius I divided his kingdom: Daniel 6:1 can be translated as 20 tax satraps (rulers) (instead of 120 since 100 alternatively means tax) (3). The same is true for Esther 1:1 (Artaxerxes I) where in accordance with history the 127 satrapies should be translated as 27 tax satrapies (provinces).

Similar to the distance at Darius I's first year: the 'about 62 years' of Daniel 6:1 refer to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple (instead of Darius' age).

• Another implicit reference to the Jerusalem Temple is Daniel 1:21, which refers to it's rebuild (Ezra 1:1-2).

• Another place where the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple is used as a point of reference is Tombstone XXX in Zoar (4).

(1) https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel%206%2CDaniel%206%3A1-28&version=TLV

(2) Roman Ghirshman, Iran (1954), Penguin Books, p 191 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Ghirshman)

(3) Wilhelm Gesenius, Hebräisches und Aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17. Auflage (1962), Springer-Verlag, p 392.

(4) https://www.academia.edu/2232770/Two_Jewish_Tombstones_from_Zoar :

"This is the tombstone of Hannah daughter of Haniel the priest, who died on the Sabbath, the first festival day of Passover, on the fifteenth day of the month of Nisan, in the fifth year of the sabbatical cycle, which is the year three hundred and sixty-nine years after the destruction of the Temple."