SOURCE: Prince, J. Dyneley. The Book of Daniel, Designed Especially for Students of the English Bible, pp. 1-56. London: Williams & Norgate, 1899.

[In the following excerpt, Prince reviews past scholarship on The Book of Daniel, arguing that it is a unified work and rejecting doubts about its authorship by the Hebrew prophet Daniel.]

THE LITERARY UNITY OF THE WORK.

Regarding the literary unity of Daniel, opinions vary. Some critics, owing to the great difference in style between the two divisions of the book, have believed in a separate origin for the first six chapters¹. Moreover, the fact that from ii. 4 through vii, the text is in Aramaic and not in Hebrew has not unnaturally influenced some scholars to believe that the Aramaic portions have a separate origin from the other parts of the book².

UNIFORMITY OF THE PROPHECIES.

A comparison of the apocalyptic and narrative chapters, however, makes it apparent that we have the same prophecies in all repeated in different forms. Thus, the vision of the colossal image in the narrative chapter ii. contains substantially the same prophecies as occur in the purely apocalyptic chapter vii. in the second part of the work. It should not be forgotten, also, that the Aramaic chapter vii., the beginning of the second part, is certainly as apocalyptic in character as any of the following Hebrew sections. Moreover, the natural division of the work is undoubtedly after Chapter vi., so that, if the difference in language were a sign of a separate origin for these narrative sections, we would expect C. vii., the beginning of the distinctly apocalyptic portion, to be in Hebrew, which, however, is not the case. The Aramaic seventh chapter belongs as completely to the following Hebrew apocalyptic sections as the Hebrew first chapter is essentially part of the following Aramaic narrative sections. There can be little doubt, therefore, that any theory seeking to divide the authorship of the book on the basis of the unexpected change of language is untenable.

DEFINITE PLAN OF THE WORK.

A resumé of the contents shows clearly that a definite plan was followed in the arrangement of the work. The author evidently sought to demonstrate to his Jewish readers the necessity of faith in Israel's God Who does not allow His chosen ones to suffer for ever under the heel of the ruthless heathen oppressor. To illustrate this, he makes use, on the one hand, of carefully chosen narratives, each arranged in a separate section which was only very loosely connected with the others, but all treating of substantially the same subject; the triumph of God's servant over his unbelieving enemies, and on the other hand of certain prophetic visions which are revealed to this same servant. So carefully, indeed, is the record of the visions arranged, that the first two chapters of the second part of the Book (vii.-viii.) were probably purposely made to appear in a symbolic form, in order that in the last two revelations, which were couched in such direct language as to be intelligible even to the modern student of history, the author may obtain the effect of a climax.

DANIEL NOT A SERIES OF “DISJECTA MEMBRA”.

The Book of Daniel can hardly be said to be “a bundle of loose leaves” as Lagarde called it³, except in the sense that the author undoubtedly made use of some material which he found ready to his hand. He most probably arranged his work purposely in more or less disconnected sections, in order to facilitate its diffusion at a time when books became known to the people at large chiefly by being read aloud in public⁴. The uniform plan of the Book and the studied arrangement of its subject matter show conclusively that it is the work of a single author, and the extreme theory, therefore, that Daniel is merely a collection of Danieliana, e. g. a number of parts of different origin joined loosely together by a careless editor must be unqualifiedly rejected⁵.

THE CHANGE OF LANGUAGE. ARAMAIC NOT THE LANGUAGE OF BABYLONIA.

Various attempts have been made to explain the sudden change from Hebrew to Aramaic in ii. 4. Some of the older commentators thought that Aramaic was the vernacular of Babylonia and was consequently employed as the language of the parts relating to that country⁶. Such a view is of course no longer tenable, as the cuneiform inscriptions now show that both Assyria and Babylonia had a distinct Semitic language of their own which remained in use until quite a late date, certainly later than the time of the author of Daniel⁷.

THE VIEW OF MERX.

The theory of Merx is equally unconvincing that Aramaic, which was the popular tongue of the period when the Book was written, was used for the narratives for this reason, while Hebrew, as the more learned language, was made the idiom of the philosophical portions. The plain answer to this idea is that Chapter i., which is just as much in the narrative style as the following Aramaic sections, is in Hebrew, while the distinctly apocalyptic Chapter vii. is in Aramaic.

THE “HYBRID” THEORY.

A third supposition that the bilingual character of the work points to a time when Hebrew and Aramaic were used indifferently is highly unsatisfactory, as it is very questionable if two languages can be used quite indifferently. In fact, a hybrid connected work in two idioms would be a literary monstrosity⁸.

HUETIUS AND BERTHOLDT.

Huetius, an old commentator, expressed the belief that the entire work was written originally in Aramaic and was subsequently translated into Hebrew⁹. He thought that in the troubled Seleucidan period the Hebrew translation was partly destroyed and the missing portions supplied from the Aramaic original. This theory does not commend itself as the most satisfactory explanation of the difficulty, because it would be rather improbable that a writer would go to the trouble of translating a work from the popular language into the idiom of culture which was known only to a few, but rather the reverse. The well known scholar Bertholdt, however, in commenting on Huetius' view hit upon what now seems the best solution of the problem, but unfortunately did not adopt it¹⁰. He remarked with a strong touch of sarcasm that it had not yet occurred to anyone to consider the Aramaic text as a translation and the Hebrew as an original.

THE ONLY POSSIBLE EXPLANATION.

In view of the evident unity of the entire work, which Bertholdt did not recognize, no other explanation of the bilingual character of the Book seems possible. The work was probably written at first all in Hebrew, but for the convenience of the general reader whose language was Aramaic, a translation, possibly from the same pen as the original, was made into the Aramaic vernacular. It must be supposed then that certain parts of the Hebrew manuscript being lost, the missing places were supplied from the current Aramaic translation¹¹.

THE AUTHORSHIP AND DATE OF THE WORK.

THE BOOK GENERALLY CREDITED BY THE ANCIENTS.

The Book of Daniel was probably in existence as early as 140 B. C., as there is a reference in the Sybilline verses (iii. 388 ff.)¹² which seems to be an allusion to Antiochus Epiphanes and the ten horns of Dan. [Book of Daniel] vii. 7; x. 24. Besides this, the allusion in 1 Macc. ii. 59-60 to the divine rescue of Daniel's three companions from the fiery furnace shows conclusively that the Book was known and generally credited at that time (100 B. C.). It seems to have been recognized by the ancients that the events chronicled in the Book of Daniel were historically accurate in every particular and that the work was actually the production of the Hebrew Prophet Daniel who lived from the time of Nebuchadnezzar the great king of Babylon (now known to have reigned 604-561 B. C.) until the beginning of the reign of Cyrus in Babylonia (538 B. C.)¹³. This may be seen from the references in the New Testament ascribing the authorship of the work to Daniel without question¹⁴ and also by the writings of the Jewish chronicler Josephus who relates, for example, with perfect good faith the fable¹⁵ about the prophecies of Daniel being shown to Alexander the Great on the entry of that monarch into Jerusalem. A long list of more modern writers who upheld the authenticity of the Book might also easily be cited¹⁶.

EARLY DOUBTERS.

The first known authority who expressed a doubt as to the genuine character of the Book of Daniel was the Neo-Platonist Porphyrius (233-304 A. D.) who, in his great work of fifteen books directed against the Christians, devoted the whole of the twelfth book to an attack on Daniel which he declared to have been the work of a Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, originally written in Greek¹⁷. The writings of Porphyrius were all collected and burnt by order of the emperors Constantine and Theodosius, so that his views have descended to posterity only through the works of Jerome who attempted to refute his arguments¹⁸.

According to Origen, the pagan Celsus is also said to have expressed a doubt concerning the truth of the occurrences described in Daniel.

THE BOOK CANNOT BE AUTHENTIC HISTORY.

It cannot be denied in the light of modern research that if the Book of Daniel be regarded as pretending to full historical authority, the Biblical record is open to all manner of attack. It is now the general opinion of most scholars who study the old Testament from a critical point of view¹⁹ that this work cannot possibly have originated according to the traditional theory at any time during the later Babylonian monarchy when the events recorded are supposed to have taken place. The chief reasons for such a conclusion are as follows:

1. THE POSITION IN THE CANON.

The position of the Book among the Hagiographa instead of among the Prophetical works would seem to indicate that it must have been introduced after the closing of the Prophetical canon. The explanation, advanced by some, that the apocalyptic nature of the work did not entitle it to a place among the Prophetical books and that therefore it was relegated to an inferior position is hardly satisfactory. Some commentators believed that Daniel was not an actual prophet in the proper sense, but only a seer, or else that he was a prophet merely by natural gifts, but not by official standing²⁰. If Daniel, however, had really seen the visions which are attributed to him by the work bearing his name, he would certainly have been a great prophet, and, as has been pointed out by Bleek, would have had fully as much right to be ranked as such as Amos, Ezekiel or Zechariah²¹. The natural explanation regarding the position of the Book of Daniel is that the work could not have been in existence at the time of the completion of the second part of the Canon, as otherwise, the collectors of the prophetical writings, who in their care did not neglect even the parable of Jonah, would hardly have ignored the record of such a great prophet as Daniel is represented to be.

2. THE SILENCE OF ECCLESIASTICUS.

The silence of Jesus Sirach (Ecclesiasticus) concerning Daniel seems to show that the prophet was unknown to that late writer who, in his list of celebrated men (C. xlix), makes no mention of Daniel, but passes from Jeremiah to Ezekiel and then to the twelve Minor Prophets and Zerubbabel. If Daniel had been known to Jesus Sirach, we would certainly expect to find his name in this list, probably between Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Again, the only explanation seems to be that the Book of Daniel was not known to Sirach who lived and wrote between 200 and 180 B. C. Had so celebrated a person as Daniel been known, he could hardly have escaped mention in such a complete list of Israel's leading spirits. Hengstenberg remarked that Ezra and Mordecai were also left unmentioned, but the case is not parallel. Daniel is represented in the work attributed to him as a great prophet, while Ezra appears in the Book bearing his name as nothing more than a rather prominent priest and scholar.

3. NO TRACES OF THE INFLUENCE OF DANIEL ON THE PROPHETS.

A third argument against an early origin for our Book is the fact that the post-exilic prophets exhibit no trace of its influence. Had the Book of Daniel been extant and generally known since the time of Cyrus, it would be reasonable to look for some sign of its power among the writings of prophets like Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, whose works, however, show no evidence that either the name or history of Daniel was known to the authors.

Attention has been attracted, furthermore to the way in which the prophets are looked back upon in ix. 6-10, which cannot fail to suggest an extremely late origin for the Book. Besides this, a careful study of the passage ix. 2 seems to indicate that the Canon of the Prophets was definitely established at the time when the author wrote. It is, moreover, highly probable that much of the material of the second part of the Book was suggested by the works of the later Prophets, especially Ezekiel and Zechariah.

4. THE CONTENTS OF THE WORK SHOW ITS INAUTHENTIC CHARACTER.

Finally, the actual contents of the Book itself seem to preclude the supposition of even an approximately contemporary origin for the work. The narrative chapters, for example, are full of striking historical inaccuracies which could never have originated at the time of the Judæan captivity in Babylon.

THREE STRIKING ERRORS.

This will readily be seen from a cursory summary of the three most important errors of this sort:—

• a) Date of the Capture of Jerusalem.

• The chronological error in C. i. that Nebuchadnezzar took Jerusalem as king of Babylon in the third year of Jehoiakim should be considered first. It is known from Jer. xxv. 1 and xxxvi. 9; 29, that Nebuchadnezzar did not begin to reign in Babylon until the fourth year of Jehoiakim in Judah, and that the Babylonians in the ninth month of the fifth year of Jehoiakim had not yet come to Jerusalem which was taken in July 586 B. C.²² in the tenth and last year of the reign of Jehoiakim. The origin of this error has been traced to a false combination of 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6 ff. and 2 Kings xxiv. 1²³.

• b) Belshazzar.

• No writer living at the Babylonian court of Cyrus could have asserted that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchadnezzar²⁴.

• c) Darius the Mede.

• No author familiar with the contemporary history could have interpolated a Median rule between the last king of Babylon and the Persians²⁵.

FOREIGN LOANWORDS.

An additional evidence that the Book of Daniel must have been written at a considerably later period than the Persian conquest of Babylon may be found in the presence of both Persian and Greek loanwords²⁶. The occurrence of the former shows conclusively that the book must have originated after the Persian conquest of Babylon, while on the other hand the presence of Greek words appears to preclude the possibility of setting the origin of the work prior to the time of Alexander the Great. For example, the names of the three musical instruments in C. iii. 5; 15; translated in the A. V. “dulcimer, psaltery and harp” are undoubtedly loanwords from the Greek συμφωνία, ψαλτήϱιον and χίθαϱιs, and the reproduction of the words in Aramaic is so exact as to presuppose a close commercial intercourse between the Greeks and the people among whom the author of Daniel lived. It is quite clear, however, that no such intercourse could have taken place before the time of Alexander and the subsequent Seleucidae²⁷.

THE LANGUAGES OF DANIEL.

No satisfactory argument concerning the age of Daniel can be deduced from an examination of the languages in which the Book is written save that, as will appear in the subsequent commentary, the Hebrew is undoubtedly late and full of Aramæisms and in some respects approaches the later language of the Mishna. The Aramaic of both Daniel and Ezra is a special Palestinian dialect of the language commonly known as the Biblical Aramaic, of which the idiom of the Jewish Targums is a somewhat modernized form²⁸.

THE APOCALYPTIC SECTIONS. THE PROPHETICAL ALLUSIONS TO ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES.

Turning more especially to the apocalyptic sections, it is quite evident that the predictions in the Book of Daniel centre on the period of Antiochus Epiphanes when that Syrian prince was endeavouring to suppress the worship of Jhvh and substitute for it the Greek idolatry²⁹. These passages either break off directly with the overthrow of this king, or else add a promise of freedom for God's people from all oppressions and the announcement of the Messianic kingdom and the resurrection of the dead. There can be no doubt for example that in the Little Horn of vii. 8; viii. 9 and the wicked prince described in ix.-xi. who is to work such evil among the saints, we have clearly one and the same person. It is now generally recognized that the king symbolized by the Little Horn, of whom it is said that he will come of one of four kingdoms which shall be formed from the Greek empire after the death of its first king, can be none other than Antiochus Epiphanes, and in like manner do the references in C. ix. plainly allude to the same prince. It seems quite clear also that xi. 21-45 refers to the evil deeds of Antiochus IV. and his attempts against the Jewish people and the worship of Jhvh. In C. xii. follows the promise of salvation from the same tyrant and, strikingly enough, the predictions in this last section x.-xii. relating to future events become inaccurate as soon as the author finishes the section describing the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes³⁰.

THE DOCTRINES.

Not only does the subject matter of the prophecies plainly point to a post-Babylonian origin for the work, but also some of the beliefs which are set forth in the second part of the book practically preclude the possibility of the author's having lived at the court of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors.

THE ANGELOLOGY.

Most noticeable among these doctrines is the complete system of angelology consistently followed out in the Book of Daniel, according to which the management of human affairs is entrusted to a regular hierarchy of commanding angels, two of whom, Gabriel and Michael, are even mentioned by name. Such an idea was distinctly foreign to the primitive Israelitish conception of the indivisibility of Jhoh's power and must consequently have been a borrowed one. It could certainly not have come from the Babylonians, however, whose system of attendant spirits was far from being as complete as that which we find in the Book of Daniel, but rather from Persian sources where a most complicated angelology had been developed³¹. There can be little doubt, as many commentators have brought out, that this doctrine of angels in Daniel is an indication of prolonged Persian influence.

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

Furthermore, the attention of scholars has been directed to the fact that the first definite prophecy of a resurrection of the dead is found in the Book of Daniel³² and it is now very generally admitted that this doctrine also originated among the Persians and could only have become engrafted on the Jewish mind after a long period of intercourse with the Zoroastrian religion³³. It is clearly impossible, therefore, that the author of passages showing such beliefs could have lived as early as the time of Nebuchadnezzar.

STYLE OF THE PROPHECIES.

In addition to all these details, it should be noticed that the Book of Daniel differs materially from all other prophetic writings of the Old Testament in the general style of its prophecies. Other prophets confine themselves to vague and general predictions, but the author of Daniel gives a detailed account of historical events which may easily be recognized through the thin veil of prophetic mystery thrown lightly around them. It is highly suggestive that just those occurrences which are the most remote from the assumed standpoint of the writer are the most correctly stated, while the nearer we approach the author's supposed time, the more inaccurate does he become. It should be stated also in this connection that the chronological reckoning by weeks and days in the prophecies of Daniel is quite at variance with the usual custom of the Hebrew prophets who rarely set a definite time for the fulfillment of a prediction, but almost invariably give their dates in round numbers³⁴.

IMPOSSIBILITY OF BABYLONIAN AUTHORSHIP.

It would be extremely difficult to reconcile all these facts, which will be discussed still further in the following chapters, with the theory of a Babylonian authorship for the Book, because, setting aside the marvel of such accurate prophecy relating to the Seleucidan period centuries before the events referred to, it would be natural to suppose that a prophet of the time of the Babylonian captivity would rather direct his attention to the freedom of his people from their immediate servitude in Babylon than from the oppression of a king who ruled several hundred years later. It would be more natural, therefore, to expect in an early work prophecies of the return of the Jews to Palestine, as in Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah, rather than the proclamation of an ideal Messianic kingdom such as we find in the second part of the Book of Daniel³⁵.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF DANIEL NOT DESTROYED.

It should not be said that Daniel loses any of its beauty and force because we are bound in the light of modern criticism to consider it a production of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, nor should conservative Bible readers exclaim because the historical accuracy of the work is thus destroyed. There can be no doubt that the influence of the Book was a very great one on the subsequent developement of Christianity, but it was not the influence of the history contained in it which made itself felt, but rather of the sublime hope for a future deliverance which the author of Daniel never lost sight of.

MENTION OF DANIEL IN THE N. T.

The allusion of our Lord to a prophecy contained in the Book of Daniel (Matth. xxiv. 15) has led many to assert that on this account only the authenticity of the work should not be questioned by true believers. This reference which is to the “abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet” shows merely that Jesus was referring to the book by its commonly accepted title. If the conservative critics could prove that our Lord meant his hearers to understand by these words that the quotation He was uttering was actually an expression used by the Prophet described in our book and that He intended thereby to stamp the work as an authentic production of a Prophet named Daniel who lived at the Babylonian court, then every true believer in the infallibility of the utterances of Jesus would be in duty bound to accept His dictum as final. Such a conclusion, however, is by no means justified by the context in which our Lord's words appear. In His vivid prophecy of the impending fall of Jerusalem, He simply made use of an apt quotation from a well-known work in order to illustrate and give additional force to His own prediction. We are no more bound by this citation to consider Daniel to be the work of a prophet who was contemporary with Nebuchadnezzar than we are compelled by the similar allusion of our Lord to the “Sign of the Prophet Jonah” (Matth. xii. 39-40) to regard the book attributed to that person as a genuine production of Jonah Ben Amittai the ancient prophet of Gath-Hepher who lived in the reign of Amaziah king of Judah in the eighth century B. C. (2 Kings xiv. 25).

THE TRUE SIGNIFICANCE OF DANIEL.

To assert, furthermore, with some excellent Christian divines that with the authenticity of the Book of Daniel the whole prophetical structure of the Old Testament stands or falls is as illogical as the statement of Newton that he who denies Daniel's prophecies denies Christianity. If the book be properly understood it must not only be admitted that the author made no pretence at exactness of detail, but also that his “prophecies” were never intended to be other than an historical resumé clothed for the sake of greater literary vividness in a prophetic garb. It is very difficult to see how such a conclusion affects the authenticity of utterances of other authors which were really meant to be predictions of the future. If viewed in the proper light, the work of the author of Daniel cannot be called a forgery, but merely a consolatory political pamphlet, and it should certainly be possible for intelligent Christians to consider the Book just as powerful, viewed according to the author's evident intention, as a consolation to God's people in their dire distress at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, as if it were, what an ancient but mistaken tradition has made it, really an accurate account of events which took place at the close of the Babylonian period.

Notes

1. Thus, Sack, Herbst and Davidson attributed the second part of the work to Daniel, but regarded the first six chapters as an introduction to the visions written by a later Jew. Eichhorn believed that Cc. ii. 4-vi. were written by one author, and Cc. vii.-xii. with i.-ii. 3 by another.

2. Zöckler, for example, following some of his predecessors such as Kranichfeld, considered the Aramaic sections as extracts from a contemporary journal in the vernacular (Dan. p. 4). Even Driver (Introd. pp. 482-3), although seeing the objection to such a view, remarks with some caution that the theory of a separate origin for these sections deserves consideration. Meinhold (Diss. p. 38 and Beiträge z. Erklärung d. B. Dan. pp. 32; 70.) believed that the Aramaic portions were in existence at the time of Alexander the Great. We should compare, in this connection, Strack (in Zöckler's Hdbch. i. 165) who inclines to this view, although admitting that the book at present forms an indivisible whole (cf. also Lenormant, Magie; Germ. ed. pp. 527; 565).

3. Mitt. iv. p. 351 (1891), commenting on a similar view of J. D. Michaelis. Cf. also GGA. 1891. pp. 497-520, especially pp. 506-517. This view of Lagarde's was really a repetition of that of Bertholdt, Dan. pp. 49 ff.

4. See Bevan, Dan. p. 25.

5. Cf. Bleek, Einl. p. 415; Delitzsch, RE.² vii. p. 471; Reuss, Gesch., p. 599, and more lately Kamphausen, Das Buch Daniel und die neuere Geschichtsforschung. 1893, p. 8.

6. So Kliefoth, Dan. p. 44; Keil, Dan. p. 14.

7. The latest connected Babylonian inscription is that of Antiochus Soter (280-260 B. C.), published V. R. 66 and translated by Peiser, KB. iii. pt. 2, p. 136. Nöldeke's theory, advanced in his brochure, Die Semitischen Sprachen, pp. 41 ff., that the Assyrian language died as a spoken idiom shortly before the fall of Nineveh is wholly unfounded. Gutbrod refers in ZA. vi. p. 27 to a brick, found at Tello, on which was engraved in Aramaic and Greek letters a proper name of distinctly Assyrian character; viz., …, 'Αδαδναδινάaηs. When it is remembered that a living language exercises the greatest possible influence on the formation of proper names, this brick, which is unfortunately undated, would seem to be an evidence, as Gutbrod thinks, that Assyrian was spoken until Hellenic times. It is perfectly possible that Assyro-Babylonian survived as a literary language as late as the second century A. D.

8. Cf. Bertholdt, Dan. p. 15; also Hävernick, and Franz Delitzsch, RE.² iii. p. 272 and vii. p. 470.

9. Demonstr. Evang. p. 472.

10. In his Daniel, on v. 2.

11. So also Bevan, Dan. pp. 27 ff. I cannot agree in this connection with Kamphausen, op. cit. p. 14, note, who rejects this hypothesis on the ground that the author of Daniel fell into the error of regarding Chaldæan as the language of Babylonia, and consequently deliberately wrote in it those sections applying more especially to Babylon, reserving the Hebrew for the more solemn prophetical part. Kamphausen does not explain any more than his predecessors in this opinion (see above p. 11 note 6) why the apocalyptic Aramaic chapter vii., which is indivisible from the succeeding prophetic Hebrew portions, is in Aramaic instead of Hebrew.

12. Schürer, Gesch. d. jüdischen Volkes. ii. pp. 791-799.

13. See Additional Note i.

14. Matth. xxiv. 15; Mark, xiii. 14, referring to Dan. ix. 27; xii. 11. The Roman Church regards Daniel as a saint and appoints July 21^st as his day (cf. Baillet, Vitae Sanctorum ad diem xxi Julii).

15. Ant. xi. 8, 5.

16. See Additional Note ii.

17. Porphyrius used the Greek version of T which he very probably believed to be the original of the work (cf. Bevan Dan. p. 3, quoting Jerome).

18. According to the statement of Jerome, he was also answered by Methodius, Apollinaris of Laodicea and Eusebius of Caesaria.

19. Collins, Scheme of literal Prophecy considered, 1726; Semler, Untersuchungen des Canons, iii. p. 505; Corrodi, Versuche über verschiedene in Theologie und Bibelkritik einschlagende Gegenstände, 1783; Versuch einer Beleuchtung der Geschichte d. jüd. u. christl. Bibelkanons, i. pp. 75 ff., 1792; Eichhorn, Einl.⁴; Bertholdt, Dan.; Kirms, Commentatio historico-critica, 1828; Redepenning, Dan., 1833; v. Lengerke, Dan., 1835; Ewald, Dan.; Hitzig, Dan.; Bunsen, Gott in der Gesch. i. Teil, 1857. pp. 302; 514; 540; Lücke, Versuch e. vollständ. Einl. i. d. Offenbarung Johannes²; Bleek, Einl.; Riehm, Einl. ii. p. 292; Strack in Zöckler's Hdbch. d. Theol. Wissenschaft, i. pp. 164-5, 1885; also in Herzog RE.² vii. p. 419; Schlottmann, Compendium d. Alttest. Theologie, 1887-9; Reuss, Gesch. d. A. T., pp. 592 ff. 1890; C. A. Briggs, Messianic Prophecy, pp. 411 ff.; Driver, Introd. p. 467, and many others.

20. The explanation originated with the Rabbinical writers that Daniel had the … ‘spirit of holiness’, but not the … ‘the official inspiration’ (Qamchi, Preface to the Psalms; Maimon, More Nebochim, 2. pp. 41; 119, quoted Bertholdt, Dan., p. xiii.). This rabbinical device was followed and elaborated by a number of the later orthodox commentators such as Auberlen, Dan. pp. 34-5; Delitzsch, RE.² iii. pp. 271-2; Isaiah, p. 3; Keil, Dan. p. 23, etc.

21. Cf. Bleek, Einl.⁵ p. 418. In the LXX. the book is placed directly after Ezekiel, which shows that the translators considered it a prophetic work. Compare, in this connection the opinion of Yahya, who attributed to Daniel the highest degree of prophetic inspiration ….

22. See Bleek, op. cit., p. 427. Cf. also Tiele, Gesch. p. 427; 2 Kings xxiv. 10-17; Jer. xxix. 2.

23. See Kamphausen, Das Buch Daniel und die neuere Geschichtsforschung, p. 17.

24. It is interesting to notice that as early as 1757 A. D., Goebel (De Belsasaro, quoted Reuss, op. cit. p. 602) calls attention to this historical error. Reuss mentions also one Sartorius, Hist. Excid. Babyl., Tübingen, 1766; also Norberg, Opp. iii, p. 222. For full discussion, see below pp. 41 ff.

25. For full discussion, see below pp. 44 ff.

26. The theory advanced by Strack, in Zöckler's Handbuch i. p. 165 and RE.² vii, p. 419, that the occurrence of Persian loanwords necessarily points to a pre-Maccabæan origin for these sections does not seem tenable. It is quite conceivable that Persian loanwords should have remained until the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.

27. See below on iii. 5 for full discussion regarding the early intercourse between the Greeks and Persians.

28. See Bevan, Dan. pp. 28-40 on the Hebrew and Aramaic of Daniel.

29. Cf. 2 Macc. v. 11 ff.

30. See below on Cc. x.-xii.

31. Cf. Cheyne, Encycl. Brit. vi. p. 806.

32. Cf. Cheyne, Book of Isaiah chronologically arranged, p. 130, § 5.

33. The investigations of Persian scholars, especially of Haug, Spiegel and Windischmann show that this is a real Zoroastrian doctrine.

34. Except the interpolated passage Is. vii. 8; in which connection, see Delitzsch, Isaiah, p. 137.

35. For the evident lateness of this part of the book cf. Bleek, Einl. p. 420; Strack, RE.² vii. p. 419; Hoffmann, Antiochus IV., pp. 82 ff.; Driver, Introd. p. 461. Derenbourg remarked rightly that the contents of C. ix, referring to Jerusalem, should remove all further doubt as to the late origin (Hebraica iv. p. 8).