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 DANIEL

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DANIEL

tions, his exact references to facts, are such as only a resident in Babylon could be fairly supposed to pos- sess. It is likewise bonie out by a comparison of the form of Daniel's prophecies in chapters vii-xii with the general surroimdings of one li\dng in Babylon and with the Babylonian monuments in particular: the imagery of Daniel's vision in the seventh chapter, for instance, is nearly the same as that foimd on monu- ments in the ruins of Ninive; and in chapters viii, 2 (Heb. text ), and x, 4, the river-banks are most appropri- ately given as the scenes of Daniel's visions. While thus very famiHar with Babylonia, the author of the Book of Daniel betrays no such special knowledge of Persia and Greece as would be natural to expect if, instead of living in the sixth century b. c, he had been a contemporary of Antiochus Epiphanes.

This absence of distinct knowledge of the times subsequent to the Bal)ylonian period has sometimes been urged to prove the second position, viz. that the writer belonged to that period, and to no other. Oftener, however, and more strongly, the linguistic features of the Book of Daniel have been brought forth to establish that second position. It has been affirmed, on the one hand, that the Hebrew of Daniel, with its nimierous Aramaisms, bears a close affinity to that of Ezechiel, and is therefore that of the period of the E.xile; and, on the other hand, that the Aramaic portions of Daniel (ii, 4-vii) are in wonderful agree- ment with those of Esdras, while they are distin- guished by many Hebrew idioms from the language of the earliest Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testa- ment. In particular, the easy transition from the Hebrew to the Aramaic (ii, 4), and the reverse (viii, 1 sqq.), is explicable, we are told, only on the supposi- tion that the writer and the readers of the book were equally familiar with both ; this free handling of both languages suits not the Machabean age but that of Daniel, or of the Exile, in which both tongues were naturally in equal use. The intrinsic grounds making for the last position, viz. that the author of the Book of Daniel is best identified with the Prophet of that name, may be summed up in this simple statement: while no other seer during the Babylonian Exile has been, and indeed can be, named as the probable recorder of the visions described in that inspired writing, Daniel, owing to his position at the court of Babylon, to his initiation into the wisdom of the Chaldees, and to the problem of his calling as God had shown it to him, was eminently fitted at that time for writing the prophecies which had been imparted to him for the comfort of the Jews of his tiipe and of subsequent ages.

Scholars who have examined closely and without bias the details of the foregoing external and internal evidence have come to the conclusion that this e\a- dence shows that rationalistic critics are decidedly wrong in denying totally the historical character of the Book of Daniel. At the same time, many among them still question the absolute cogency of the ex- trinsic and intrinsic grounds set forth to prove the Danielle authorship. These latter scholars rightly reject as untrue the statement of Josephus, which re- fers the close of the Old Testament Canon to the time of Esdras; and in the well-known bias of the same Jewish historian for magnifying whatever concerns his nation they have a valid reason for doubting his as- sertion that the prophecies of Daniel were shown to Alexander the Great when this prince passed through Palestine. The alleged reference to Daniel's expres- sions in the Septuagint version of Deuteronomy they easily explain as a later gloss, and the actual acquaint- ance of the First Book of the Machabees with the Prophecy of Daniel they not unnaturally regard as compatible with the non-Daniclic autliorship, and in- deed with tlie composition of the Book of Daniel in the time of Antiochus IV. As regards the last external testimony in favour of the genuineness of that sacred

writing, viz. Christ's words concerning Daniel and his prophecy, these same scholars think that, without going against the reverence due to Christ's Person, and the credence due His words, they have a right not to cofLsider the passage appealed to in Matt., xxiv, 15, as absolutely conclusive: Jesus does not say explicitly that Daniel wrote the prophecies that bear his name; to infer this from His words is to assume something which may well be questioned, viz. that in referring to the contents of a book of Holy Writ, He necessarily confirmed the traditional ^^ew of His day concerning authorship; in point of fact, many scholars whose belief in Christ's truthfulness and Divinity is beyond question — such Catholics, for instance, as Father Souciet, S. J., Bishop Hanneberg, Francois Lenormant, and others — have thought that Christ's reference to Daniel in Matt., xxiv, 15, does not bear out the Danielle authorship as it is claimed by conservative scholars chiefly on the basis of His words.

Having thus shown, to their own satisfaction, the inconclusive character of the external evidence, or mainstay in favour of the traditional view, the oppo- nents of the Danielle authorship endeavour to prove that internal evidence points decisively to the late origin which they ascribe to the Book of Daniel. Briefly stated, the following are their principal argu- ments. As it Is now found in the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Daniel contains historical references which tend to prove that its author is not an eyewitness of the events alluded to, as woukl be the case if he were the Prophet Daniel. Had this author lived during the E.xile, it is argued, he would not have stated that "in the third year of the reign of Joakim, king of Juda, Nabuchodonosor, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem, and besieged it" (Dan., i, 1), since this conflicts with Jeremias, xxxvi, 9, 29 ; he would not have repeatedly used the word "Chaldeans" as the name of a learned caste, this sense being foreign to the AssjTO-Babylonian language, and of an origin later than the Exile; he would not have .spoken of Baltasar as "king" (v, 1, 2, 3, 5, etc., \-iii, 1), as the "son of Nabuchodonosor" (v, 2, 18, etc.), since it is ascertained that Baltasar was never king, and that neither he nor his father had any blood-relationship to Nabuchodonosor; he would have avoided tl>e statement that "Darius the Mede succeeded to the kingdom" of Baltasar (v. 31), since there is no room for such a ruler between Nabonahid, Baltasar's father, and Cyrus, the conqueror of Baby- lon; he could not have spoken of "the Books" (Dan., ix, 2 — Heb. text), an expression which implies that the prophecies of Jeremias formed part of a well- known collection of sacred books, which assuredly was not the case in the time of Nabuchodonosor and Cyrus, etc. The linguistic features of the book, as it exists in the Hebrew Bible, point also, it is said, to a date later than that of Daniel: its Hebrew is of the distinctly late type which followed Nehemias' time; in both its Hebrew and its Aramaic portions there are Persian words, and at least three Greek words, which of course should be referred to a period later than the Babylonian Exile.

Not satisfied ■n'ith the merely negative inference that the Book of Daniel was not composed during the Captivity, the opponents of the Danielle authorship strive to reach a positive conclusion as to the date of its origin. For this purpose, they examine the con- tents of that inspired writing, and they think that by viewing both its parts in the light of history, they are led to refer definitely its composition to the time of Antiochus Epijihanes. It can be readily seen, we are told, that the interest of the visions which make up the second part of Daniel culminates in the relations subsisting between the Jews and Antiochus. It is this prince who manifestly is the suliject of Dan., viii, 9-13, 23-25, and who is very probably "the little hom"spoken of in Dan., v\i, 8, 20. 21, 25, while events of his reign are apparently described in Dan., ix, 25-