Stephen Hawking has died at the age of 76.

[possibletarian]

The conclusion of this post is that there is no historical problem about Belshazzar in the book of Daniel. Perhaps a blood-relationship will indeed be proved in the future or perhaps the meanings of the terms father and son as “predecessor” and “successor” are really all we need to resolve any so-called “problem” in Daniel about this person.  — Also, I want to point to the lack of knowledge about Belshazzar out side of the Bible until the 19th century as proof of the books authenticity. Furthermore, the claims that Daniel made a mistake in identifying Belshazzar as the “son” of Nebuchadnezzar are nothing more than critical grumblings that were began when skeptics were forced to eat crow when it it was discovered that Daniel’s mention of a previously unknown Babylonian ruler had been vindicated.

Goodness me i love it to

Lets look at the conclusion, lets break it down though I'm surprised to find you are once again resorting to  a christian post on word press.  *bold and italics mine*

The conclusion of this post is that there is no historical problem about Belshazzar in the book of Daniel.

Okay.. lets look...

Perhaps a blood-relationship will indeed be proved in the future

or perhaps the meanings of the terms father and son as “predecessor” and “successor”

Perhaps is hardly a sound conclusion is it now ?

Also, I want to point to the lack of knowledge about Belshazzar out side of the Bible until the 19th century as proof of the books authenticity.

Well yes and no, it has many other problems the lack of mention of the king(s), there were four between Nebuchadnezzar and Nabonidus not mentioned, dates around the fall of Jerusalem etc.  You would expect some historical documents to have things that others do not.

the claims that Daniel made a mistake in identifying Belshazzar as the “son” of Nebuchadnezzar are nothing more than critical grumblings that were began when skeptics were forced to eat crow when it it was discovered that Daniel’s mention of a previously unknown Babylonian ruler had been vindicated.

Well no, good historians only add things to history that they have reasonable reason to do so, and it's absolutely true Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar (without some mental gymnastics that is)

Now this is the problem we have Theists tend to point to the bits of the bible that have been proven true like the existence of Belshazzar to then claim that the whole bible can be trusted, even though there are clear problems, and when faced with these problems have to write whole reams of excuses lots of 'maybe's' or 'perhaps' (as in the post above) . This is fine when speculating archaeological  meanings of finds.  

This is not however what theists claim, they claim the scriptures to be divinely inspired by a god who knows all, see's all, and has protected that text. To prove that's not the case everything would have to be true and accurate.

You need the whole of scripture to be true to prove your case. I am interested in how you would define a 'reasonable explanation' when dealing with the seeming? disparity between scripture and what we discover, when is it not a reasonable explanation.. to you at least ?