Christus Troia Nova and Babylon the Great: How Daniel, Aristotle, Virgil, Seneca, and the Didache Prophesized the USA and the Return of Christ

Copyright © 2024 E. K. McFall, Ph.D.

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

SECTION I

A Dialectic Regarding the Dating of Daniel

SECTION II

Alexander the Great and the Song of the

Goat Or Alexander Becomes Dionysos

SECTION III

The Anomaly of the ‘Theatre of Dionysos’

at Sepphoris Or Nero Flees to Neronia

SECTION IV

Understood Relations: Canaanites,

Phoenicians, and the Red-Haired Hero

SECTION V

The USA in End Time Prophecy

Or The Two Faces of Rome

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

The earthly success and triumph of Aeneas, of the whole of Roman history, and of Augustus is determined by nothing other than the sovereignty on earth of the highest God, by the shaping of earthly things through the spiritual force that governs the universe, by the measured cosmos won from the powers of chaos that lurk inside and press in from all quarters outside.

(F. Klingner)¹

For these I set no bounds in space or time; but have given empire without end.

(Virgil, Aeneid I.278).²

‘By this sign thou shalt conquer.’

Phrase under a radiant cross in the sky, seen by the Roman emperor Constantine, at Milvian Bridge, Oct 312 AD.

Here thou shalt be a little while a forester, and / shalt be with me forever a citizen of that Rome / of which Christ is Roman.

(Dante. Purgatorio XXXII.100-2).³

The ancient sources are unequivocal: Greeks, Trojans/Romans, and Hebrews were related by blood.⁴ Nonetheless, most scholars have either expressly rejected these sources or glossed over them without comment. If we accept what the ancient’s say in their own documents, then the full story of the ancient library of Greeks, Romans, and Hebrews can only begin to be perceived when we start putting what they have told us into practice. Indeed, understanding the blood relationship between Trojans, Greeks, and Hebrews explains why Hebrew scripture and Greco-Roman tragedy/comedy and epic would be part of a greater whole foretelling the cosmic empire of Christ and the set-up for the end of days conflict between Christ, Satan/Dionysos/Osiris and antichrist/Nero and Canaanites verses Trojans.

For example, in Genesis 22:18, we are informed that ‘in thy seed’ (Abraham’s) ‘shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.’ Later, in 1 Maccabees 12.21, King Areus (309-265 BC) of the Spartans reportedly writes to the Jewish high priest Onias, saying: ‘It is found in writing, that the Lacedemonians and Jews are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham.’⁵ The massive ancient Library of Greek, Roman/Trojan, and Hebrew texts purposely—although not always conspicuously—reflect the fundamental fact of this kinship.

Rather than rejecting these accounts, the aim of this book—somewhat akin to Schliemann’s belief in the historicity of Homer—is to start from this foundation and the profound ramifications thereof. Then, focusing primarily on the Greek and Roman side of the equation, offer a succinct interpretation of the intersection and interconnection between Greek and Roman epic, tragedy and comedy,⁶ and Old and New Testament writings.

Cumulatively, these writings reveal the final world empire, the time frame of the birth of the Messiah and Antichrist (6 BC - 68 AD), and affirm that Jesus is the Messiah and Nero is the Antichrist.⁷ I argue that these prophetic writings reveal the antichrist is not only in the line of Oedipus but that Oedipus is a prophetic cipher for Nero. Moreover, this all requires a certain period of time that includes the new (Solomonic?) dimensions of the Temple (10 BC - 70 AD)⁸ and the rise of the Julio-Claudian dynasty (27 BC - 68 AD). Taken together it makes clear the meaning of the ancient prophetic hieroglyphic of Oedipus and antichrist: Nero.

The essential assumptions underlying this argument are:

1. Jews, Trojan/Romans, and Greeks were all related by blood.

2. From the Jews would come the Messiah; from the Trojans would come the eventual cosmic empire of Christ with no bounds in time or place—‘For these I set no bounds in space or time; but have given empire without end,’ Aeneid I.278; ‘For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them’ Matt 18:20; and, from the ‘Greek’ descendants of Cadmus of Tyre—that is, Phoenician Egypt to Boeotian Thebes—would come the Antichrist (Oedipus/Nero) who, as we are told, most Romans of the time suspected did not die in Rome in 68 AD.⁹

3. The Antichrist is not only in the line of Oedipus but Oedipus is actually a prophetic ‘rune’ or ‘conjuration’ of Nero. Moreover, Nero himself makes this clear.

4. The ultimate ruler of the Roman/Trojan Empire unbounded by time and space—the Cosmic Christian empire—will in the fullness of time be Christ. This became clear, or should have become clear in 312 AD at Milvian Bridge, when a cross allegedly appeared on the sun to the Roman emperor Constantine along with the phrase ‘in this sign you shall conquer.’ It is doubly clear if one accepts Joseph D. Reed’s reading of the Aeneid who argues that the death of a Rutulian named Osiris (12.458-61), not mentioned before or after, is meant to evoke the Egyptian God of the Underworld. (How could it not?) And, furthermore, that the slaying of Osiris ‘…can be shown to emblematize both the whole mission of Aeneas…’¹⁰ Christ’s ‘Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s’ (Matt. 22.21) is ultimately a prophetic expression of this terminal truth. That is, that the Roman Empire—when reconstituted at the end times—will ultimately foreshadow the cosmic empire of Christ—Dante’s ‘that Rome of which Christ is Roman.’

5. Admonitions to and prophecies about Troy, Athens, Israel, and Rome may also be about the USA, which is the reconstituted end time Roman Empire. This New Rome has the potential to be Dante’s ‘that Rome of which Christ is Roman,’ that is Christus Troia Nova, or the Rome of Revelation, Babylon the Great. Thus, tracts such as Paul’s Epistle to the Romans has particular relevance for America and Americans.

6. The Greek, Roman, and Hebrew writings were all pointing toward a specific time: that is, when the ‘new’ (Solomonic?) dimensions of the Temple were in place (10 BC - 70 AD), prophesied in the book of Daniel. Within this timeframe established in Daniel, is another prophesied time frame: the cosmic Roman empire that began in the Julio-Claudian era and, once established, has never actually ended.¹¹ Thus, within this era is the reign of Augustus (27 BC - 14 AD) that, as Virgil’s Messianic eclogue predicts, will encompass a birth of a child who would bring back the Golden Age. Within this era is also the life and rule of Nero/Antichrist (54 AD-?).

7. An analogy then forms in Virgil: Augustus is to an unnamed supernatural ruler (Christ) as Aeneas is to Augustus. This is made intelligible by the death of Osiris in the Aeneid who, before Christ, was the God most identified with resurrection in the ancient Mediterranean. Virgil and other Roman epicists and tragedians also give us the other half of this equation—Oedipus and Orpheus—realized by Nero.

8. Tyrannos or Tyrant as used by Aristotle and Virgil (the name Turnus is a transliteration of Tyrannos) has a meaning beyond the literal. It should be understood at the spiritual level to mean: From Tyre; Against God. To take this further, Christians should understand Tyrant, as used in Aristotle and Virgil, at the very least to be a foreshadowing of antichrist. In fact, I have come to see ‘Tyrannus,’ as used by Aristotle and Virgil, as a pre-Christ term for ‘antichrist.’

9. Dionysos is NOT indigenous to the Greek mainland, as the iteration of Dionysos we are most familiar with traces his human family tree to Tyre (as does Oedipus and Alexander the Great), a Phoenician city about 40 miles from Nazareth. The Dionysos of Euripides Bacchae is the son of Semele and Zeus. Semele is the daughter of Cadmus and Harmonia. Cadmus, who left Tyre and founded Boeotian Thebes, is the son of the King of Tyre, Agenor, and great great-grandfather of Oedipus. Like Oedipus, Dionysos is explicitly of the bloodline of Alexander the Great and Nero; by inference, Judas Iscariot.¹²

10. Dionysos is another name for Satan and can be seen as a ‘false’ YHWH¹³ or as YHWH’s ‘other.’¹⁴

11. The story of Christ and Antichrist—coherent only in retrospect—is substantiated in Greco-Roman epic and tragedy/comedy and ‘fills in’ many of the gaps missing in the Hebrew and Christian sources.

12. A fundamental and foundational component of Greek epic and tragedy/comedy, pointed out by Aristotle, is that there is a prophetic element inherent in these texts.

13. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin writings—the language of the prophecies foretelling and revealing Christ and antichrist—also expose Dionysos/Satan/Osiris as the same entity albeit with different names.¹⁵

14. That Christ was prophesied in these sources is both symbolized and actualized at the Crucifixion under the sign above Christ written in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. The prophesied messiah and the prophetic sources have all come together at this place and at this moment in time to proclaim Christ, King of the Jews.

And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS. This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin (Jn. 19. 19-20).

With these words, written in several languages, across centuries, across geographical space, and by an omniscient author—have come to their historical culmination. Coupled with the spoken words in Aramaic on the cross, foreshadowed by the Aramaic passages in Daniel, all of the languages containing the most significant prophecies of Christ have coalesced into this one moment in space and time. It is a pre-written story—the past is prologue—and the prelude to this moment had already been written in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Christ is the Messiah and history in this respect is pre-determined, as the ancient sources foretold.

SECTION I

A Dialectic Regarding the

Dating of Daniel

I t was the anti-Christian Neoplatonist, Porphyry of Tyre (c.233-301 AD), sometime in the late third century AD, who first opined that Daniel could not be from the sixth century BC and must be a Maccabean fable produced circa 167-165 BC. Notwithstanding Porphyry’s blatantly ideological contention, the orthodox view that Daniel was a product of the Babylonian Captivity held. That is, until a more skeptical approach to historical research became the norm. I will not trace the history of this change but it is safe to say that most scholars currently ascribe to the notion that Daniel in its current form was finalized around 165 BC, in the time of the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BC), during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175-164 BC). ¹⁶

It should be noted, however, the present-day assertion of a late Daniel at the outset came down to three Greek words for musical instruments mentioned in the text—kitharis, psaltérion, and symphónia.¹⁷ At the time, historians were confident that the Chaldean Empire could not have come into contact with Greek-speaking peoples. We now know this to be a spectacularly inaccurate assumption, as noted in Section II of this book. Because of this, the three Greek words in Daniel are now frequently used as evidence supporting an early Daniel, as names of musical instruments often retain the language from which they originated.

Once it was understood that the Greek words in Daniel were not justification for a late dating of the text, the traditional dating of Daniel should have been reaffirmed. This is not what happened. Instead, scholars (apparently starting from an unassailable position—in their view—that it is impossible for humans to see the future, and thus convinced that Daniel could not have foreseen Alexander the Great, Antiochus Epiphanes, Christ, the antichrist, the rebuilding of the Temple, or the Persian, Greek, and Roman empires), set out to demonstrate that Daniel is a second century BC product, or later. Incredibly, the case was actually beginning to be made for a first century AD Daniel, until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls incontrovertibly proved that Daniel existed at least by the second century BC.

The modern belief that Daniel is a second century BC forgery was clearly not the verdict of the Jewish priestly class that sanctioned it; nor apparently of the Ptolemies or Seleucids, who respectively ruled over large Jewish populations; nor the Magi of the former Chaldean Empire who continued under the Seleucids and, by the time of Christ, the Parthians; nor Jews from any city across the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia that we know of; nor, among highly educated and/or knowledgeable individual Jews such as Hillel (born and educated in Babylon and later Jerusalem), Philo (born and educated in Alexandria), or Josephus (born and educated in Jerusalem).

Moreover, we find that none of the historians who had reason to—or often did—take notice of such things (for example, Diodorus Siculus, Arrian, Strabo, Apollodorus, Plutarch, Alexander Polyhistor, Pliny, Dionysius of Helicarnassus, or Quintus Curtius Rufus, et al) alert their readers that ‘although the Jews claim that Daniel prophesizes Alexander the Great and the Rise of Rome, Chaldean priests say they never heard of the prophecies of Daniel.’ Or ‘the Jews of Babylon say both the prophet and the Book of Daniel are news to them.’ Or ‘the Seleucids claimed no such manuscript could be found in their libraries.’ Or, ‘anti-Maccabean Jews of Rome report certain passages in Daniel are Maccabean additions.’ Or ‘Berossus of Babylon’s three-volume Babyloniaka, written by the chief priest of the Esagil, does mention Nebuchadnezzar’s dreams but not Daniel.’¹⁸ Or, ‘the Ptolemies say Daniel was absent in the original catalog of Hebrew works identified for inclusion in the Septuagint.’ Or, ‘when the Sibylline Books were lost in the conflagration in Rome in 83 BC, it was discovered in the effort to reconstruct these lost books from other oracular/prophetic texts, including the Old Testament, that Daniel was a Maccabean imposture.’¹⁹

While a sixth century BC Daniel that predicted the Tyrian and Oedipal line of Alexander the Great and Antiochus IV Epiphanes—who together foreshadow the greater ‘Tyrant’ or man of Tyre to come (Nero)—is worthy of canonization, it has never been satisfactorily explained just why a second century BC Daniel that may have made ‘mistakes’ about the denouement of Antiochus Epiphanes would be.²⁰ This is atrocious luck for the anonymous second century BC author(s) of Daniel, as there are only three years between Antiochus Epiphanes’ desecration of the Temple in 167 BC and his death in 164 BC.²¹ That allows 167-165 BC as the years a late Daniel would have likely been written. If the Maccabean counterfeiter(s) had only waited one or two more years, then Daniel could have been an error free vaticinium ex eventu.

When something is a fraud, it is vital to recognize who benefits from the fraud and who is defrauded. If Daniel is a forged document written around 165 BC that quickly achieved sacrosanctity followed by canonization all within forty years, as finds at Qumran suggest, then not only Gentiles, but many Jews could be said to be the victims. The Jewish people living in and around Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean in 165 BC were far from being a monolithic group. They had different histories, lived in different areas, and were subject to different cultural influences, as Aramaic speaking Jews and Greek speaking Jews attest.

First, was the alleged sojourn in Egypt, recorded in Genesis and Exodus. This was followed by the 8th century BC Assyrian conquest when Jews were again dispersed from their homeland. Next came the Babylonian Captivity, the period when Daniel was purportedly written, which began under Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BC and ended in 539 BC under Nabonidus. At this time, the Jewish people became subject to Cyrus the Great and the Achaemenid or Persian Empire. Cyrus allowed the Jews of the Captivity to return to their homeland, but a great number stayed in Babylonia. It is during the Persian Period (c.550-330 BC) when the legendary ‘generation of the Men of the Great Synagogue’ or Great Assembly were active, at which time the gathering and fixing of the Hebrew canon was, according to tradition, first ordained. After the conquests of Alexander the Great, the cities of Cyrene, Damascus, Sardis,²² Antioch, Salamis, Pergamum, Paphos, Halicarnassus, and Alexandria, among others, became home to flourishing Jewish communities.

Not only were Jewish people living in different regions and speaking different languages by the second century BC, different camps were sometimes fighting each other. The Maccabean Revolt against the Seleucid Empire (the reason a Maccabean-era Daniel was written, according to the late Daniel proponents), was also a civil war within Judaism between Jewish Hellenists and those who ascribed to more traditional views. Jewish Hellenists, hoping to root out the traditional Jewish religion, sided with the Seleucids. It was amidst this upheaval that a number of Jews emigrated to Rome in 161 BC, which perhaps indicates these emigrees were anti-Maccabean and counted themselves among the losers of the rebellion.

Could some or most of these emigrees to Rome even be understood as pro-Seleucid Jews? Apparently, there were pro-Seleucid Jews during the Judean Civil War (93-87 BC), which was fought between Sadducees and Pharisees/Seleucids. (Or, if not ‘pro-Seleucid,’ certainly allies with the Seleucids).²³ Finally, the Hasmonean Civil War (67-63 BC) again pitted Sadducees against Pharisees. This war ultimately involved Rome and ended with the loss of Jewish independence. This stretch of time when infighting and suspicion among opposing factions became the norm, implies it would be the least likely point in time that the introduction of a newly created faux manuscript, or the audacious alteration of a venerated text, would succeed.

During the whole of the Maccabean Revolt, there were Jewish populations scattered around the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia who may have been largely unaffected by the turmoil in their homeland in 167-160 BC —for example, Alexandria, Cyprus, Cyrene, Ecbatana,²⁴ Sardis, and possibly Ephesus.²⁵ Perhaps some of these Jews did not pick a side and would not be a party to legitimizing obviously inauthentic religious documents created for political concerns of the moment. In addition, there might be a number of pro-Seleucid or anti-Maccabean Jews in Rome (after 161 BC) and Babylonia, who would rightly call out a fraudulent Daniel for what it was. Surely there were righteous Jews who did not condone Jews on either side of the hostilities generating pseudo-sacred texts designed or destined to become an integral part of their Bible. There should also be thoughtful Jews in each separate Jewish community who would understand that if a new narrative could be plunked down as ancient scripture, and then quickly authenticated, what would that say about any of their religious writings?

A 165 BC ‘Daniel deception’ is a reckless gambit for another reason as well. Throughout much of their history, the Jewish people were not an isolated group practicing their religion away from the prying eyes of other groups, other religions, and other kingdoms. As we know, numerous stories concern their dealings with various civilizations and empires, many of these antagonistic at different times to them and/or their religion. (To name a few, Egyptians, Hittites, Philistines, Canaanites, Assyrians, and Chaldeans).

Daniel itself not only purports to happen in another land but in the presence of the most skeptical of witnesses—the priests, sorcerers, physicians, scribes, and other learned men who made up what were called the Magi, and the kings and courts of Babylon who worshipped Marduk under Nebuchadnezzar II and, later, spanning the reign of Nabonidus, the moon god Sîn. This is significant because the Magi did not go the way of the Chaldean or Neo-Babylonian Empire. As modern archeology and research has shown, the Chaldean priesthood successfully maintained continuity from the sixth century BC down to the third century AD.

We have to then wonder what it would really mean for a fabricated or deceptively edited Daniel to be unloaded in 165 BC, during a great period of contention among Jews. This text might have seemed quite remarkable to the Jewish remnants of the Captivity still living in Babylon and Seleucis on the Tigris.²⁶ Not to mention being highly inflammatory to the Chaldean priests of the time, heirs to the bewildered and ineffectual Magi depicted in Daniel.

But it is not just pious Jews, anti-Maccabean Jews, Seleucids, Ptolemies, Pharisees, Sadducees, or the Magi who were characters in, affected by, or might have an interest in the prophecies in Daniel. The appearance of Alexander the Great and the rise of the Roman Empire is prophesized in Daniel. Therefore, there were and are a number of peoples, early and late, who might have an interest in Daniel. Yet, no papyrus or cuneiform record has ever been unearthed in Babylon, Alexandria, or elsewhere questioning where these second century BC Judean Jews came up with this preposterous account.

Libraries were more common in the ancient world than we might suspect, as Lionel Casson showcases in his book, Libraries in the Ancient World. There were a number of libraries and collections scattered throughout Mesopotamia. This may be a legacy of the first systemized amassment of writings that we know of—the Library of Ashurbanipal—which was established in Nineveh in the seventh century BC and may have ended up a Chaldean possession.²⁷ The Chaldeans also had their own libraries in palaces and temples, not to mention private collections kept by scribes. Moreover, not only were records kept by non-Jews in Babylon (and presumably Seleucis on the Tigris), at least by the reign of Antiochus III (222-187 BC), ‘there was a library in the capital of the Seleucids at Antioch’²⁸ along with a growing Jewish community.

Ptolemy II Philadelphus, whose ascendancy spanned the years 285-246 BC, appears to have been especially keen to keep records and acquire manuscripts, as is shown by the history of the Septuagint. (Translation from the Hebrew into Greek began in the third century BC). Maybe more interesting, considering that Alexander the Great is foreseen in Daniel, is that his father, Ptolemy I, who legendarily founded the Royal Library of Alexandria c.295-283 BC, wrote a history of Alexander (now lost) which Arrian (c.86 AD-c.160 AD) used as one of his sources for his own biography of Alexander.

Later, Alexander the Great’s own private library was brought to Rome after the Roman conquest of Macedonia in 168 BC,²⁹ practically at the very moment a late Daniel would have been composed. Josephus (37 AD-100 AD), may have had access to this trove (if it survived the conflagration of 83 BC and the Great Fire of Rome of 64 AD), and other Greek and Roman sources, along with: (1) Herodian records; (2) Temple documents presumably brought to Rome after 70 AD, feasibly even archives that mentioned Alexander’s meeting with Jaddus;³⁰ (3) presumptively, other Jewish sources such as from Cyprus, Alexandria, Cyrene, and Nehardea—site of the Shaf ve-Yativ Synagogue near Babylon, first founded in the days of Jehoiachin;³¹ (4) the library of Pergamon, a portion of which may have been in Rome;³² (5) the vanished output of Timagenes of Alexandria and Poseidonius³³ (considered the most learned man of his time); (6) the two missing books of Curtius’ History of Alexander (written c.31-41 AD),³⁴ which conceivably reported the meeting with Jaddus; and, (7) other known histories now lost such as the pious Jason of Cyrene’s five books on the Maccabean Revolt (which, considering the subject matter, might have raised questions about a fallacious Maccabean Daniel), Menander of Ephesus’ history of Tyre (who Josephus quotes), Berossus of Babylon’s three-volume Babyloniaka (who Josephus cites in the Contra Apionem), the biography of Alexander by the Macedonian officer, Aristobulus of Cassandreia,³⁵ and Ptolemy I Soter’s history of Alexander. (The last two, of which, Arrian drew upon decades after the death of Josephus).

This is mentioned because Josephus recounts Alexander’s meeting with Jaddus in 332 BC, wherein Alexander is informed that he is the ‘he goat’ foretold in Daniel. Two years later, Alexander’s tutor, Aristotle, wrote the Poetics, a treatise on ‘tragodia’ or ‘goat song,’ as will be discussed in the following section. Of import in the Poetics is the notion that descendants of Tyre, which Alexander is, are against God. In other words, the genealogy leading to antichrist is as important as the genealogy leading to Christ.

We know Josephus was well-versed in Attic tragedy, was he familiar with the Poetics too?³⁶ In addition, it was pointed out that Daniel and Ezekiel taken in conjunction imply that Alexander is a new Nebuchadnezzar II,³⁷ something Josephus may be reinforcing by making both Daniel’s prophecy and the dream of Alexander a central theme of this meeting.³⁸ In any case, no one at the time, when Josephus could have defended himself from an abundance of extant sources, pointed out that this encounter could not have happened as portrayed because Daniel was written in 165 BC, going on two centuries after the alleged meeting took place.

The optimum reason Josephus’ story was not challenged, from an early Daniel perspective, would be that Alexander’s private library survived the Great Fire of Rome of 64 AD wherein a report of the meeting with Jaddus is found. A scenario nearly as potent is manuscripts brought to Rome after the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD became the basis of this account.³⁹ Just as likely, memory of Jaddus and Alexander was part of an oral history in Jerusalem that Josephus became privy to as a young man. However, existing sources in tandem might have spoken to the truth of Josephus’ claims. It is possible, Berossus of Babylon’s three-volume Babyloniaka mentioned ‘Daniel the Jew’ and the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar II. Perhaps, Ptolemy I Soter’s history of Alexander referred to the prophecy of Daniel, a story he may have had first-hand knowledge of or later learned from Alexandrian Jews. And the meeting of Jaddus with Alexander (the king of Tyre by descent from Hercules and as conqueror of Tyre), could have been verified in passing by Aristobulus of Cassandreia or Menander of Ephesus.

As for Daniel—if it was a Maccabean-era product—there existed an almost infinite number of moving parts, any number of groups and peoples who might feel they were being defamed or defrauded, and a multitude of ways that a new narrative with its incredible stories could have been exposed as a hoax. But it never was. The most likely explanation for this is because Daniel is not a late creation; that it is an ancient text and people knew it.

Certainly, there is no justification, one which rises to the level equal to the incalculable damage that could be done to the reputation and luster of all Hebrew holy works, that would make it advisable to hastily create a fictional account in the second century BC but set in the sixth century BC amongst the peoples and players of the Chaldean Empire. Then, in short order, authenticate said work. We should remember, the events in Daniel concluded just before the Chaldean Empire was conquered in 539 BC by Cyrus the Great to become part of the Achaemenid Empire. The Achaemenid Empire at its height included Ionian Greek colonies, Cyprus, Tyre, Judea, and much of Macedonia and Egypt.

That is a lot of people and cultures who might have early heard of the wondrous tales reported in a sixth century BC Daniel that, as events played out, ultimately starred the descendants of Tyre, Greece, Macedonia, and Rome, among others. Further, there is tantalizing evidence—besides being the stimulant for Attic tragedy discussed in the following section—to suggest other peoples did learn of the prophecies in Daniel.