AUTHOR

Traditionally, Christians and Jews have maintained that Daniel wrote the prophecy that bears his name in the sixth century BC and that his predictions are supernatural and accurate. Critical scholars disagree and hold the view (first proposed by Porphyry, a neoplatonist, in the third century AD) that an anonymous Jew writing under the pseudonym Daniel produced the prophecy in its present form during the second century BC. They argue that the book consists of nonhistorical tales and pseudo-prophecies. Its purpose was to encourage Jewish believers in their struggle against the Syrian-Greek tyrant Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–163 BC) during the Maccabean period. According to this theory, the book of Daniel is the latest of the Old Testament Scriptures. Generally, those who advocate the Maccabean view consider chapters 7–12 essentially to be an original creation of the second-century author, who introduced his material with the “court legends” of chapters 1–6, dating to the previous century. Often this writer is identified as a member of the religious sect known as the Hasidim.

THE RELIABILITY OF DANIEL

Critics claim that the book’s language, theology, position in the Hebrew Scriptures with the Writings rather than the Prophets, and inaccuracies about historical events before the second century BC demand a late date of composition. Evangelicals respond with the following arguments:

1.Daniel was not placed in the Writings because the book was written later or the author’s prophetic credentials were in doubt. At Qumran, the religious center from which came the Dead Sea Scrolls, the prophecy enjoyed unusual prominence and both the Septuagint and Josephus (Against Apion 1.8) classified Daniel with the Prophets. Apparently those responsible for fixing the order of the Hebrew Bible did not include the book in the prophetic section because Daniel was mainly a statesman, not a preacher to the nation of Israel in the manner of Isaiah or Jeremiah.

2.Archaeological discoveries have confirmed the reliability of the book in many instances (e.g., the existence of Belshazzar). Alleged historical inaccuracies on close examination are found to be nonexistent or have reasonable explanations.

3.Daniel’s Hebrew is consistent with a sixth century date (it resembles the Hebrew of Ezekiel), and his Aramaic exhibits striking parallels with that of the Elephantine Papyri, also written in imperial Aramaic and dated to the fifth century BC. By contrast, the Aramaic of the book does not conform to later samples of the language found at Qumran (e.g., Genesis Apocryphon). Critical assertions that the book’s Persian and Greek loan words require a late date will be discussed in the notes at 3:2 and 3:5.

4.The theological argument is one of the most precarious proofs for dating any biblical book. If Daniel is dated to the sixth century by other objective criteria, alleged late theology in the book (e.g., teaching about angels, the Messiah, and the end-times) is sixth-century theology.

Arguments for the traditional view include these points:

1.The New Testament writers and Jesus himself accepted the traditional understanding of the prophecy (see Mt 24:15 and Mk 13:14; Mt 26:64 and Mk 14:62 and Lk 22:69; Heb 11:33-34).

2.The book professes to have been written by Daniel (see 7:1; 12:4), to be an account of a historical individual who experienced the exile and lived in Babylon, and to predict future events (see 2:29-45; 7:2,15-27; 8:15-26; 9:24-27; 10:14; 11:2–12:4).

3.One of the eight manuscripts of Daniel discovered at Qumran (4QDanc) has been dated to about 125 BC and may have been written earlier. Some scholars have argued that there would have been insufficient time for the book of Daniel to have gained such widespread acceptance if it were written only forty years previously.

4.The Septuagint was the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced in Alexandria, Egypt, that came to be used widely by the Jews of the Diaspora. Scholars generally agree that at least the Pentateuch (first five books) was translated in the middle of the third century BC, but it is likely that all the Bible books were translated into Greek about the same time. If so, a second century date for Daniel is impossible. According to the critical view, only thirty years after it was written, the book of Daniel was received into the canon and carried to Alexandria, approximately three hundred miles away, and there translated into Greek. Such a proposal seems unlikely.

5.Ezekiel, the sixth-century prophet, mentioned Daniel three times in his book (Ezk 14:14,20; 28:3)—seemingly clear verification of the traditional view. Critical scholars, however, insist Ezekiel was speaking of a mythological hero named Danel who appears in the ancient Ugaritic epic “The Tale of Aqhat.” A decisive argument against such a theory is that the epic Danel was an idolater, hardly a model of faithfulness to Israel’s God. Ezekiel must have been referring to the author of the book of Daniel. If so, the historicity of Daniel and his book would seem to be established.

THE APOCALYPTIC GENRE

Daniel (specifically chaps. 7–12) is the classic example of the apocalyptic genre. The term apocalyptic is derived from a Greek word apokalupsis, meaning “revelation, disclosure.” In this genre (type of literature), a divine revelation is given to a prophet through a mediator concerning future events. Symbolism and numerology are often used. Apocalyptic literature’s major theme is the triumph of the kingdom of God over the kingdoms of earth at the end of time. Critical scholars view apocalyptic merely as a literary technique used to convey a writer’s theology of future hope, not as a record of actual supernatural visions given by God about the future. Evangelical scholars differ on specific interpretations of Daniel’s apocalyptic passages but agree that biblical apocalyptic grants the world an authentic glimpse of God and the future.

An unusual feature of the book is that it is written in two languages—Daniel 1:1–2:4a and 8:1–12:13 are in Hebrew and Daniel 2:4b–7:28 is in Aramaic. Critics insist that the use of Aramaic reflects a late date (when Aramaic had replaced Hebrew) but offer no convincing explanation as to why only a portion of the book is written in Aramaic. Chapter 7 (Aramaic) seems particularly problematic for the critical position since it is the same literary genre (apocalyptic vision) as chapters 8–12 (Hebrew). The most satisfying proposal is that Daniel wrote in Aramaic (the common language of that region in that period) the parts of the book with universal appeal or special significance for the Gentile nations and employed Hebrew in sections more applicable to the Jewish people.

Eight manuscripts of the text of Daniel have survived two millennia in the caves of Qumran. They were produced sometime between the second century BC and the first century AD. These fragments demonstrate the Qumran community’s high regard for the book of Daniel and the faithfulness with which the biblical text was preserved over the centuries.