Talk:Four kingdoms of Daniel

Merger proposal
We should merge this into Daniel 7, which is a much more comprehensive article about exactly the same thing. JosiahHenderson (talk) 16:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The idea of 4 monarchies is much bigger than just the Book of Daniel 7. It is derived from the entire book of Daniel, especially chapters 2, 7, 8 and somewhat from 11-12.  It is probably good enough on it's own.  Ninatukawewe (talk) 15:08, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * See WP:SUMMARY. "The text of any article consists of a sequence of related but distinct subtopics. When there is enough text in a given subtopic to merit its own article, that text can be summarized from the present article and a link provided to the more detailed article." This fits the bill closely in this case, and so I'd be against merging. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree with User: Ninatukawewe. The Four Monarchies are not subjected to Daniel 7 alone. I am against the proposed merge. Thanks, Jasonasosa (talk) 23:20, 27 September 2011 (UTC)

Aftermath of additions
I have worked to sort the added material into a logical flow that will help the reader (concentric style). That means all the material Rome = fourth monarchy gravitates to the end: there is a real issue of exposition given the volume of different views that need to be taken into account.

I removed this paragraph for discussion:


 * Post-Reformation Protestant historicists (e.g. Young, Smith, Anderson, etc.) believe that the first four kingdoms of the key prophecies of Daniel should be identified as (1) the Neo-Babylonian empire, (2) the Medo-Persian empire (3) the Macedonian empire of Alexander and his successors, and (4) the Roman empire. They then include the Papacy and the Roman Catholic Church in their interpretations.

When I looked both Smith and Anderson were Seventh-Day Adventists, so that reference to them should be in the relevant section.

Generally speaking the referencing needs a great deal of work. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:54, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your help on this page User: Charles Matthews. It's coming together nicely! Jasonasosa (talk) 12:11, 12 October 2011 (UTC)


 * It's reading much better now, I think. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:42, 14 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes it is! Charles Matthews you are a pleasure to do edits with! You are the first editor I have ever come across, that has done serious edits to a sensitive page, without one single fight! Your editorial activity since 07:29, 12 October 2011‎ has been superb. I seriously don't know how we haven't crossed paths, because I am not an easy editor to deal with. Thank you for some great teamwork! Jasonasosa (talk) 12:02, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Appendix charts
The charts in the appendix that supposedly explain the various interpretations are an incoherent mess. They use completely inconsistent styles. No distinction is made between what the scripture says and what is an interpretation. They contradict the rest of the article. They contradict Book of Daniel itself. Why do some of the charts not have Daniel 2? What do the colors mean?

Cellarius ....
... did or said what based on the nature of Medieval Latin? The current sentence fragment referencing and linking him essentially says nothing. 2600:1004:B119:CBF8:703D:230B:C2E7:7643 (talk) 22:42, 13 December 2017 (UTC)

Source for claim that Reconstructionist Jews believe that Daniel has been fulfilled?
The article currently states: “Jewish Reconstructionists and Full Preterists believe that Daniel is completely fulfilled, and that the believers are now working to establish the Kingdom of God on earth.” I was raised Reconstructionist, and I’ve never heard this claim in my life. A google search doesn’t reveal anything either. Does anyone have a source for this? Chevalier100 (talk) 01:08, 10 August 2022 (UTC)

Minor scholar
I hope that she becomes a full professor, but right now she is a minor scholar, see WP:DUE. We don't wholly reshape the article just because a minor scholar says so. E.g. Kiel University has place 530 in the world, according to. tgeorgescu (talk) 04:43, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * This is not her thesis, she just happens to have written an extensive study on the subject. DerMaxdorfer (talk) 12:04, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Apart from that, judging a piece of scholarship by the place in some rankings of the university at which the author was employed at the time of writing sounds like a pretty enwiki-like thing to do and maybe explains some of the quality issues this language version has... DerMaxdorfer (talk) 13:13, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * I'm not saying that she did bad research. It's not up to me to make that call. What I'm saying it that our article is citing people who are much higher on the pecking order. tgeorgescu (talk) 13:22, 6 January 2024 (UTC)
 * However, I doubt that the current scholarship, regardless of any of your status issues, contradicts Oellig in the essential statements and supports the current structure of the relevant article passages. The individual pieces of information in the Wikipedia entry are indeed sufficiently substantiated (and apparently even with literature whose author has a sufficiently renowned university, the right nationality, gender and native language). But this does not change the fact that this individual information has been combined to form an unbalanced and partially false overall picture. Oellig's book could help to improve this, that's all I meant. DerMaxdorfer (talk) 13:44, 6 January 2024 (UTC)

This falsely justified page move has not improved matters, as the text is now, so to say, "unable to decide" whether it is only describing the biblical concept of the four kingdoms or the entire cultural history of this idea. Best regards, DerMaxdorfer (talk) 13:49, 6 January 2024 (UTC)


 * @DerMaxdorfer Well since most of us don't have the Oelig paper in front of us, it's hard to know what you are talking about. Perhaps you could give some context about what you think the insights are that we are missing?
 * I'm not sure why you think the article is "unable to decide" what it is about - it is about the Old Testament passage and its cultural impact. I suspect that what you are wanting is more on parallels in other ancient traditions. If so, there is nothing to stop you adding a section to the article on predecessors or analogues of the motif. Or, if you find that there is a much bigger tradition that deserves a full article, you can start one. The reason this article is specifically about Daniel is because it was the Biblical book of Daniel that informed medieval and early modern European historiography, and thus had a great impact on European culture. Doric Loon (talk) 11:16, 7 January 2024 (UTC)