1. The position of the book among the _Hagiographa_, instead of among
the Prophetical works, seems to show that it was introduced after the
closing of the Prophetical Canon. Some commentators have believed that
Daniel was not an actual prophet in the proper sense, but only a seer,
or else that he had no official standing as a prophet and that therefore
the book was not entitled to a place among official prophetical books.
But if the work had really been in existence at the time of the
completion of the second part of the canon, 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 so great a prophet as
Daniel is represented to have been.
2. Jesus ben Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), who wrote about 200-180 B.C., in
his otherwise complete list of Israel's leading spirits (xlix.), makes
no mention of Daniel. Hengstenberg's plea that Ezra and Mordecai were
also left unmentioned has little force, because Ezra appears in the book
bearing his name as nothing more than a prominent priest and scholar,
while Daniel is represented as a great prophet.
3. Had the Book of Daniel been extant and generally known after the time
of Cyrus (537-529 B.C.), it would be natural to look for some traces of
its power among the writings of Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, whose
works, however, show no evidence that either the name or the history of
Daniel was known to these authors. Furthermore, the manner in which the
prophets are looked back upon in ix. 6-10 cannot fail to suggest an
extremely late origin for the book. Besides this, a careful study of ix.
2 seems to indicate that the Prophetical Canon was definitely completed
at the time when the author of Daniel wrote. It is also highly probable
that much of the material in the second part of the book was suggested
by the works of the later prophets, especially by Ezekiel and Zechariah.
4. Some of the beliefs set forth in the second part of the book also
practically preclude the possibility of the author having lived at the
courts of Nebuchadrezzar and his successors. 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 Yahweh'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 so
complete as that which is set forth in the Book of Daniel, but rather
from Persian sources where a more complicated angelology had been
developed. As many commentators have brought out, there can be little
doubt that the doctrine of angels in Daniel is an indication of
prolonged Persian influence. Furthermore, it is now very generally
admitted that the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead, which is
advanced for the first time in the Old Testament in Daniel, also
originated among the Persians,[15] and could only have been engrafted on
the Jewish mind after a long period of intercourse with the Zoroastrian
religion, which came into contact with the Jewish thinkers considerably
after the time of Nebuchadrezzar.
5. All the above evidences are merely internal, but we are now able to
draw upon the Babylonian historical sources to prove that Daniel could
not have originated at the time of Nebuchadrezzar. There can be no doubt
that the author of Daniel thought that Belshazzar (q.v.), who has now
been identified beyond all question with _Bel-sar-uzur_, the son of
Nabonidus, the last Semitic king of Babylon, was the son of
Nebuchadrezzar, and that Belshazzar attained the rank of king.[16] This
prince did not even come from the family of Nebuchadrezzar. Nabonidus,
the father of Belshazzar, was the son of a nobleman _Nabu-baladsu-iqbi_,
who was in all probability not related to any of the preceding kings of
Babylon. Had Nabonidus been descended from Nebuchadrezzar he could
hardly have failed in his records, which we possess, to have boasted of
such a connexion with the greatest Babylonian monarch; yet in none of
his inscriptions does he trace his descent beyond his father. Certain
expositors have tried to obviate the difficulty, first by supposing that
the expression "son of Nebuchadrezzar" in Daniel means "descendant" or
"son," a view which is rendered untenable by the facts just cited. This
school has also endeavoured to prove that the author of Daniel did not
mean to imply Belshazzar's kingship of Babylon at all by his use of the
word "king," but they suggest that the writer of Daniel believed
Belshazzar to have been co-regent. If Belshazzar had ever held such a
position, which is extremely unlikely in the absence of any evidence
from the cuneiform documents, he would hardly have been given the
unqualified title "king of Babylon" as occurs in Daniel.[17] For
example, Cambyses, son of Cyrus, was undoubtedly co-regent and bore the
title "king of Babylon" during his father's lifetime, but, in a contract
which dates from the first year of Cambyses, it is expressly stated that
Cyrus was still "king of the lands." This should be contrasted with Dan.
viii. 1, where reference is made to the "third year of Belshazzar, king
of Babylon" without any allusion to another over-ruler. Such attempts
are at best subterfuges to support an impossible theory regarding the
origin of the Book of Daniel, whose author clearly believed in the
kingship of Belshazzar and in that prince's descent from Nebuchadrezzar.
Furthermore, the writer of Daniel asserts (v. 1) that a monarch "Darius
the Mede" received the kingdom of Babylon after the fall of the native
Babylonian house, although it is evident, from i. 21, x. 1, that the
biblical author was perfectly aware of the existence of Cyrus.[18] The
fact that in no other scriptural passage is mention made of any Median
ruler between the last Semitic king of Babylon and Cyrus, and the
absolute silence of the authoritative ancient authors regarding such a
king, make it apparent that the late author of Daniel is again in error
in this particular. It is known that Cyrus became master of Media by
conquering Astyages, and that the troops of the king of Persia capturing
Babylon took Nabonidus prisoner with but little difficulty. Unsuccessful
attempts have been made to identify this mythical Darius with the
Cyaxares, son of Astyages, of Xenophon's _Cyropaedia_, and also with the
Darius of Eusebius, who was in all probability Darius Hystaspis. There
is not only no room in history for this Median king of the Book of
Daniel, but it is also highly likely that the interpolation of "Darius
the Mede" was caused by a confusion of history, due both to the
destruction of the Assyrian capital Nineveh by the Medes, sixty-eight
years before the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, and also to the fame of
the later king, Darius Hystaspis, a view which was advanced as early in
the history of biblical criticism as the days of the Benedictine monk,
Marianus Scotus. It is important to note in this connexion that Darius
the Mede is represented as the son of Xerxes (Ahasuerus) and it is
stated that he established 120 satrapies. Darius Hystaspis was the
father of Xerxes, and according to Herodotus (iii. 89) established
twenty satrapies. Darius the Mede entered into possession of Babylon
after the death of Belshazzar; Darius Hystaspis conquered Babylon from
the hands of certain rebels (Her. iii. 153-160). In fine, the
interpolation of a Median Darius must be regarded as the most glaring
historical inaccuracy of the author of Daniel. In fact, this error of
the author alone is proof positive that he must have lived at a very
late period, when the record of most of the earlier historical events
had become hopelessly confused and perverted.
With these chief reasons why the Book of Daniel cannot have originated
in the Babylonian period, if the reader will turn more especially to the
apocalyptic sections (vii.-xii.), it will be quite evident that the
author is here giving a detailed account of historical events which may
easily be recognized through the thin veil of prophetic mystery thrown
lightly around them. It is indeed 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 is quite
apparent that the predictions in the Book of Daniel centre on the period
of Antiochus Epiphanes (175-164 B.C.), when that Syrian prince was
endeavouring to suppress the worship of Yahweh and substitute for it the
Greek religion.[19] There can be no doubt, for example, that in the
"Little Horn" of vii. 8, viii. 9, and the "wicked prince" described in
ix.-x., 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 shall come of
one of four kingdoms which shall be formed from the Greek empire after
the death of its first king (Alexander), can be none other than
Antiochus Epiphanes, and in like manner the references in ix. must
allude to the same prince. It seems quite clear that xi. 21-45 refers to
the evil deeds of Antiochus IV. and his attempts against the Jewish
people and the worship of Yahweh. In 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 Epiphanes. The general style of all these prophecies
differs materially from that of all other prophetic writings in the Old
Testament. Other prophets confine themselves to vague and general
predictions, but the author of Daniel is strikingly particular as to
detail in everything relating to the period in which he lived, i.e. the
reign of Antiochus IV. Had the work been composed during the Babylonian
era, it would be more natural to expect prophecies of the return of the
exiled Jews to Palestine, as in Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah, rather
than the acclamation of an ideal Messianic kingdom such as is emphasized
in the second part of Daniel.
As a specimen of the apocalyptic method followed in Daniel, the
celebrated prophecy of the seventy weeks (ix. 24-27) may be cited, a
full discussion of which will be found in Prince, _Daniel_ 157-161.
According to Jer. xxv. 11-12, the period of Israel's probation and trial
was to last seventy years. In the angelic explanation in Daniel of
Jeremiah's prophecy, these years were in reality year-weeks, which
indicated a period of 490 years. This is the true apocalyptic system.
The author takes a genuine prophecy, undoubtedly intended by Jeremiah to
refer simply to the duration of the Babylonian captivity, and, by means
of a purely arbitrary and mystical interpretation, makes it denote the
entire period of Israel's degradation down to his own time. This
prophecy is really nothing more than an extension of the vision of the
2300 evening-mornings of viii. 14, and of the "time, times and a half a
time" of vii. 25. The real problem is as to the beginning and end of
this epoch, which is divided into three periods of uneven length; viz.
one of seven weeks; one of sixty-two weeks; and the last of one week. It
seems probable that the author of Daniel, like the Chronicler, began his
period with the fall of Jerusalem in 586. His first seven weeks,
therefore, ending with the rule of "Messiah the Prince,"[20] probably
Joshua ben Jozadak, the first high-priest after the exile (Ezra iii. 2),
seem to coincide exactly with the duration of the Babylon exile, i.e.
forty-nine years.
The second period of the epoch, during which Jerusalem is to be peopled
and built, and at the end of which the Messiah is to be cut off, is much
more difficult to determine. The key to the problem lies undoubtedly in
the last statement regarding the overthrow of the Messiah or Anointed
One. Such a reference coming from a Maccabean author can only allude to
the deposition by Antiochus IV. of the high-priest Onias III., which
took place about 174 B.C., and the Syrian king's subsequent murder of
the same person not later than 171 (2 Macc. iv. 33-36). The difficulty
now arises that between 537 and 171 there are only 366 years instead of
the required number 434. It was evidently not the author's intention to
begin the second period of sixty weeks simultaneously with the first
period, as some expositors have thought, because the whole passage shows
conclusively that he meant seventy independent weeks. Besides, nothing
is gained by such a device, which would bring the year of the end of the
second period down to the meaningless date 152, too late to refer to
Onias. Cornill therefore adopted the only tenable theory regarding the
problem; viz. that the author of Daniel did not know the chronology
between 537 and 312, the establishment of the Seleucid era, and
consequently made the period too long. A parallel case is the much
quoted example of Demetrius, who placed the fall of Samaria (722 B.C.)
573 years before the succession of Ptolemy IV. (222), thus making an
error of seventy-three years. Josephus, who places the reign of Cyrus
forty to fifty years too early, makes a similar error.
The last week is divided into two sections (26-27), in the first of
which the city and sanctuary shall be destroyed and in the second the
daily offering is to be suspended. All critical scholars recognize the
identity of this second half-week with the "time, times and a half a
time" of vii. 25. This last week must, therefore, end with the
restoration of the temple worship in 164 B.C.
This whole prophecy, which is perhaps the most interesting in the Book
of Daniel, presents problems which can never be thoroughly understood,
first because the author must have been ignorant of both history and
chronology, and secondly, because, in his effort to be as mystical as
possible, he purposely made use of indefinite and vague expressions
which render the criticism of the passage a most unsatisfactory task.
The Book of Daniel loses none of its beauty and force because we are
bound, in the light of modern criticism, to consider it as a production
of the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, nor should conservative
Bible-readers lament because the historical accuracy of the work is thus
destroyed. The influence of the work was very great on the subsequent
development of Christianity, but it was not the influence of the
_history_ contained in it which made itself felt, but rather of that
sublime hope for a future deliverance of which the author of Daniel
never lost sight. The allusion to the book by Jesus (Matt. xxiv. 15)
shows merely that our Lord was referring to the work by its commonly
accepted title, and implies no authoritative utterance with regard to
its date or authorship. Our Lord simply made use of an apt quotation
from a well-known work in order to illustrate and give additional force
to his own prediction. If the book be properly understood, it must not
only be admitted that the author made no pretence at accuracy of detail,
but also that his prophecies were clearly intended to be merely an
historical resume, clothed for the sake of greater literary vividness in
a prophetic garb. The work, which is certainly not a forgery, but only a
consolatory political pamphlet, is 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 had made it, really an accurate
account of events which took place at the close of the Babylonian
period.[21]
LITERATURE.--See bibliography in Bevan, _Daniel_ 9, and add
Kamphausen, _Dan._, in Haupt's _Sacred Books of the Old Testament_;
Behrmann, _Dan._ (1894); J. D. Prince, _Dan._ (1899); G. A. Barton,
"The Compilation of the Book of Daniel," in _Journ. Bibl. Lit._
(1898), 62-86, against the unity of the book, &c., &c.; J. D. Davis,
"Persian Words and the Date of O.T. Documents," in _Old Testament and
Semitic Studies: in Memory of W. R. Harper_ (Chicago, 1908).
(J. D. Pr.)
ADDITIONS TO DANIEL.--The "additions to Daniel" are three in number:
_Susannah and the Elders_, _Bel and the Dragon_, and _The Song of the
Three Children_. Of these the two former have no organic connexion with
the text. The case is otherwise with regard to the last. In some
respects it helps to fill up a gap in the canonical text between verses
23 and 24 of chapter iii. And yet we find Polychronius, early in the 5th
century, stating that this song was not found in the Syriac version.
_Susannah._--This addition was placed by Theodotion before chap. i., and
Bel and the Dragon at its close, whereas by the Septuagint and the
Vulgate it was reckoned as chap. xiii. after the twelve canonical
chapters, Bel and the Dragon as xiv. Theodotion's version is the source
of the Peshitto and the Vulgate, for all three additions, and the
Septuagint is the source of the Syro-Hexaplaric which has been published
by Ceriani (_Mon. Sacr._ vii.). The legend recounts how that in the
early days of the Captivity Susannah, the beautiful and pious wife of
the rich Joakim, was walking in her garden and was there seen by two
elders who were also judges. Inflamed with lust, they made infamous
proposals to her, and when repulsed they brought against her a false
charge of adultery. When brought before the tribunal she was condemned
to death and was on the way to execution, when Daniel interposed and, by
cross-questioning the accusers apart, convinced the people of the
falsity of the charge.
The source of the story may, according to Ewald (_Gesch._^3 iv. 636),
have been suggested by the Babylonian legend of the seduction of two old
men by the goddess of love (see also Koran, _Sur._ ii. 96). Another and
much more probable origin of the work is that given by Brull (_Das
apocr. Susanna-Buch_, 1877) and Ball (_Speaker's Apocr._ ii. 323-331).
The first half of the story is based on a tradition--originating
possibly in Jer. xxix. 21-32 and found in the Talmud and Midrash--of two
elders Ahab and Zedekiah, who in the Captivity led certain women astray
under the delusion that they should thereby become the mother of the
Messiah. But the most interesting part of the investigation is concerned
with the latter half of the story, which deals with the trial. The
characteristics of this section point to its composition about 100-90
B.C., when Simon ben Shetah was president of the Sanhedrin. Its object
was to support the attempts of the Pharisees to bring about a reform in
the administration of the law courts. According to Sadducean principles
the man who was convicted of falsely accusing another of a capital
offence was not put to death unless his victim was already executed. The
Pharisees held that the intention of the accusers was equivalent to
murder. Our apocryph upholds the Pharisaic contention. As Simon ben
Shetah insisted on a rigorous examination of the witnesses, so does our
writer: as he and his party required that the perjurer should suffer the
same penalty he sought to inflict on another, so our writer represents
the death penalty as inflicted on the perjured elders.
The language was in all probability Semitic-Hebrew or Aramaic. The
paronomasiae in the Greek in verses 54-55 ([Greek: hupo schinon ...
schisei]) and 58-59 ([Greek: hupo prinon ... prisei]) present no cogent
difficulty against this view; for they may be accidental and have arisen
for the first time in the translation. But as Brull and Ball have shown
(see _Speaker's Apocr._ ii. 324), the same paronomasiae are possible
either in Hebrew or Aramaic.
LITERATURE.--Ball in the _Speaker's Apocr._ ii. 233 sqq.; Schurer,
_Gesch._^3 iii. 333; Rothstein in Kautzsch's _Apocr. u. Pseud._ i. 176
sqq.; Kamphausen in _Ency. Bib._; Marshall in Hastings' _Bible Dict._;
Toy in the _Jewish Encyc._
_Bel and the Dragon._--We have here two independent narratives, in both
of which Daniel appears as the destroyer of heathenism. The latter had a
much wider circulation than the former, and is most probably a Judaized
form of the old Semitic myth of the destruction of the old dragon, which
represents primeval chaos (see Ball, _Speaker's Apocr._ ii. 346-348;
Gunkel, _Schopfung und Chaos_, 320-323). Marduk destroys Tiamat in a
similar manner to that in which Daniel destroys the dragon (Delitzsch,
_Das babylonische Weltschopfung Epos_), by driving a storm-wind into the
dragon which rends it asunder. Marshall (Hastings' _Bib. Dict._ i. 267)
suggests that the "pitch" of the Greek (Aramaic [Aramaic: zifa]) arose
from the original term for storm-wind ([Aramaic: zafa]).
The Greek exists in two recensions, those of the Septuagint and
Theodotion. Most scholars maintain a Greek original, but this is by no
means certain. Marshall (Hastings' _Bib Dict._ i. 268) argues for an
Aramaic, and regards Gasters's Aramaic text [_Proceedings of the Society
of Biblical Archaeology_ (1894), pp. 280-290, 312-317; (1895) 75-94] as
of primary value in this respect, but this is doubtful.
LITERATURE.--Fritzsche's _Handbuch zu den Apoc._; Ball in the
_Speaker's Apocr._ ii. 344 sqq.; Schurer,^3 _Gesch._ iii. 332 sqq.; and
the articles in the _Ency. Bibl., Bible Dict._, and _Jewish Encyc._
The Greek text is best given in Swete iii., and the Syriac will be
found in Walton's _Polyglot_, Lagarde and Neubauer's _Tobit_.
_Song of the Three Children._--This section is composed of the Prayer of
Azariah and the Song of Azariah, Ananias and Misael, and was inserted
after iii. 23 of the canonical text of Daniel. According to Fritzsche,
Konig, Schurer, &c., it was composed in Greek and added to the Greek
translation. On the other hand, Delitzsch, Bissell, Ball, &c., maintain
a Hebrew original. The latter view has been recently supported by
Rothstein, _Apocr. und Pseud._ i. 173-176, who holds that these
additions were made to the text before its translation into Greek. These
additions still preserve, according to Rothstein, a fragment of the
original text, i.e. verses 23-28, which came between verses 23 and 24 of
chapter iii. of the canonical text. They certainly fill up excellently a
manifest gap in this text. "The Song of the Three Children" was first
added after the verses just referred to, and subsequently the Prayer of
Azariah was inserted before these verses.
LITERATURE.--Ball in the _Speaker's Apocr._ ii. 305 sqq.; Rothstein in
Kautzsch's _Apocr. und Pseud._ i. 173 sqq.; Schurer,^3 _Gesch._ iii.
332 sqq. (R. H. C.)