Attn Faithlife: Tagging Inconsistencies in Daniel

In Dan 10:13, 20 several classes of Angels are assigned i.e. "prince of Persia " is An Angel and Prince of Persia (Angel), but "kings of Persia" and "prince of Greece" are not assigned the same way. "kings of Persia" is not treated as an Angel and "prince of Greece" is an Angel only in the "prince" part.

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David Taylor, Jr.

seems to me like this very issue was pointed out a while back as well, but I could be wrong.

Jimmy Parks

As far as I can tell, the current annotation of these referents fits with others readings .

The "kings of Persia" are entities who Daniel was left with, seemingly people who are actual rulers of the area.

And the "prince of Greece" is also annotated as an angel because the term (שַׂ֣ר) prince is commonly used to refer to angelic beings. In v 21, Michael is refers to himself as Daniels prince (שַׂ֣ר).

Do you have sources that annotate these entities differently? I'd be glad to think through retagging these entities if given ample evidence.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1111364#Comment_1111364

The "kings of Persia" are entities who Daniel was left with, seemingly people who are actual rulers of the area.

"The NIV’s “detained there with the king of Persia” could mean that the angel was prevented from leaving the area ruled by the human king of the Persian Empire. Yet the Hebrew word translated “king” is plural, and the concept of the angel’s being “detained with” the earthly kings of Persia seems untenable. In the context of angelic warfare, these “kings” likely were spiritual rulers who attempted to control Persia."
Miller, S. R. (1994). Daniel (Vol. 18, p. 284).

"Verse 13 shows that the angels of God have power to counteract and thwart the agents of the Devil. Here it was the archangel, Michael (“one of the chief princes”), who broke the hindrance put up by the demonic “king of Persia” and paved the way for the interpreting angel to deliver God’s answer to Daniel."
Archer, G. L., Jr. (1986). Daniel. In F. E. Gaebelein (Ed.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Daniel and the Minor Prophets (Vol. 7, p. 125).

"And I remained there with the kings of Persia; rather, “and I became superfluous there,” etc., namely, because another who was still more powerful than I had relieved me, and now represented me in the resistance to be made to the prince of Persia".

Lange, J. P., Schaff, P., Zöckler, O., & Strong, J. (2008). A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Daniel (p. 229).

The <Person Angel informing Daniel> is the one detained by the "kings of Persia", and the Bible Sense for "kings" is "supernatural being <==> king".

So "kings of Persia" should be treated as supernatural beings exactly the same as "prince of Persia".

And the "prince of Greece" is also annotated as an angel because the term (שַׂ֣ר) prince is commonly used to refer to angelic beings. In v 21, Michael is refers to himself as Daniels prince (שַׂ֣ר).

I agree.

"13, 14. Why had there been delay for three weeks if his prayer had been heard at the beginning? The prince of the kingdom of Persia was to blame. A representative of Persia in the heavenlies is intended; Greece also has an angelic counterpart"
Baldwin, J. G. (1978). Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 23, p. 201).

The phrase "prince of Greece" needs to be annotated the same as "prince of Persia", where prince should also be a "Prince of Greece" and Greece is also "An Angel" + "Prince of Greece"

Jimmy Parks

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1111484#Comment_1111484

Thank you for the references. I'll look into the references surrounding the "kings of Persia" further.

The issue with the prince of Greece is due to it being a single reference. We didn't create specific id's for referents that weren't mentioned at least 5 times.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1111596#Comment_1111596

We didn't create specific id's for referents that weren't mentioned at least 5 times.

A decision I take a very strong exception to - I don't edit my Bible based on the number of occurrences of a word - I read the whole thing carefully.

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1111611#Comment_1111611

We didn't create specific id's for referents that weren't mentioned at least 5 times.

A decision I take a very strong exception to - I don't edit my Bible based on the number of occurrences of a word - I read the whole thing carefully.

This was a practical decision based on the substantial effort of annotating biblical referents. The primary benefit of that annotation is the ability to find all the places where an entity is mentioned, and to perform related searches: but if the entity is restricted to a verse or two, there's very little real benefit to that annotation, because you can read all the mentions in a narrow range. I wouldn't object to annotating them all, but that effort has to compete against all the other curation tasks we'd like to undertake.

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1111596#Comment_1111596

The issue with the prince of Greece is due to it being a single reference. We didn't create specific id's for referents that weren't mentioned at least 5 times.

Which canon of Scripture did you use in making that decision?

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1112203#Comment_1112203

Which canon of Scripture did you use in making that decision?

From observation, I believe it was the Calvinist Protestant canon. I would argue strongly for the RSV/NRSV ecumenical canon as it is used by a number of mainline Protestant congregations, covers the Middle Way Protestants, Western Catholics, Byzantine and Slavic Orthodox. Additional canonical books could be added as resources require.

SineNomine

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1112210#Comment_1112210

Which canon of Scripture did you use in making that decision?

From observation, I believe it was the Calvinist Protestant canon.

From assumption, I expect the same, though I would be pleased to discover otherwise.

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1112203#Comment_1112203

We typically make our curation decisions on a small set of Bibles that we know includes the majority of our users: that includes the NRSV. But it's possible that the process we used (OT first, Deuterocanon later) meant that ">= 5" really means ">=5 in the Protestant canon" (the annotation was done by different curators IIRC, which is another confounding factor).

I'm not sure there are a lot of cases where adding the Deuterocanon in the counting would have changed the outcome, but it's possible. The signature of such omissions would typically be that we chose two different entity identifiers for what is arguable the same entity, one from the Deuterocanon and the other from (only) the Protestant canon. If there are cases like that, I'd call it a bug that we should fix: given my criteria above, ensuring one reference across the canons adds value.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1112218#Comment_1112218

Sean, I am so glad that such uncertainty is your problem not mine. I hope you realize that my being a bull terrier on data issues is an attempt to help improve the data for everyone not a reflection of my respect for you.

Sean Boisen

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/1112220#Comment_1112220

... my being a bull terrier on data issues is an attempt to help improve the data for everyone ...

We share that goal, and your comments are often very helpful in that regard.