Did the Book of Daniel Really Predict the Future? (vIDEO)

Welcome to the home of Episode 206 of the Misquoting Jesus Podcast with Bart Ehrman. Below, you can watch the entire episode, read its description, and see links to related resources.

links mentioned in this episode:

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episode description

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The Book of Daniel is often treated as a supernatural roadmap to the future, but Bart Ehrman argues that its visions make far more sense when understood in their historical context. The episode begins by examining the modern Christian obsession with biblical prophecy and end-times prediction, tracing its rise particularly to the 19th century and the upheavals of modernity. Ehrman then places Daniel within the development of Jewish apocalyptic thought, which emerged roughly 200 years before Jesus in response to severe persecution and the problem of suffering.

The key question is whether Daniel really predicted the sequence of empires described in its visions. Ehrman explains that although the book presents itself as the work of a 6th-century-BCE figure, scholars have strong reasons to date its composition to the 2nd century BCE, during the persecution under Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Its apparent predictions therefore become remarkably precise because the author is describing events that had already happened. The purpose was not simply to predict history but to reassure persecuted Jews that their suffering had a place in God's plan and that deliverance was imminent.

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The episode also explores Daniel's influence on Jesus, particularly the apocalyptic figure described as “one like a son of man.” Ehrman argues that Jesus appears to have been influenced by Daniel's apocalyptic worldview.

Finally, the discussion examines modern attempts to use Daniel to predict the end of the world, including William Miller's failed prediction of 1844, and why fulfilled “prophecies” can create the illusion of predictive accuracy.