Book exploring identity of Darius the Mede released

September 3, 2023 - 23:15

TEHRAN-The Persian translation of the book “Darius the Mede: A Reappraisal” by Steven Anderson has hit the local book market.

Ali Asghar Salahshour has translated the book into Persian and Qoqnus Publications has published the book, IRNA reported.

The Median Kingdom is one of the governments about which there is not much information in written texts and archaeological evidence.

So far, no writings of the Medes' rule have been found. While the existence of the Medes is clearly proven in Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian royal inscriptions as well as classical sources (including Herodotus and Xenophon), all the archaeological evidence discovered from the Median period is based on speculation. 

The biblical book of Daniel describes a Median king named Darius, who sat on the throne of the mighty Medo-Persian Empire at the time when Babylon fell to the armies of the Medes and the Persians (539 BC).

Yet Darius the Mede is not a king whom you will read about in a modern history book, for mainstream scholarship affirms that there never was such a person as Darius the Mede. Evangelical Bible scholars have proposed various solutions to harmonize the book of Daniel with extrabiblical literature, but there remains a measure of dissatisfaction with these solutions. 

This book attempts to break the current scholarly impasse on the issue by arguing for the historicity of the Median king Cyaxares II, who is described at length by the Greek historian Xenophon, and who closely corresponds to Daniel’s Darius the Mede. 

The original book was published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform in 2014.

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