The Prophet Daniel

By Arno Clement Gaebelein

Appendix

THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE BOOK OF DANIEL

The following are the more important of the arguments which evidence the genuineness of the book.

1. The existence and authority of the book are most decidedly testified by the New Testament. Christ himself refers to it (Matt. xxiv. 15), and gives himself (in virtue of the expression in Dan. vii. 13) the name of Son of Man; while the Apostles repeatedly appeal to it as an authority (ex. gr., 1 Cor. vi. 2 ; 2 Thess. ii. 3; Heb. xi. 33, sq.). To the objection that Christ and the writers of the New Testament are here no real authority, inasmuch as they accommodate themselves to the Jewish notions and views, we reply that the genuineness of the book of Daniel is so closely connected with the truth of its contents — in other words, that the authenticity of the book is so immediately connected with its authority — that it is impossible to doubt the genuineness, without suspecting at the same time a wilful fraud and cheat in its contents; so that the accommodation in this case to national views would be tantamount to wilfully confirming and sanctioning an unpardonable fraud.

2. The period of the exile would be altogether incomprehensible without the existence of a man like Daniel, exercising great influence upon his own people, and whose return to Palestine was effected by means of his high station in the state, as well as through the peculiar assistance of God with which he was favored. Without this assumption, it is impossible to explain the continued state of independence of the people of God during that period, or to account for the interest which Cyrus took in their affairs. The exile and its termination are indicative of uncommon acts of God towards highly-gifted and favored men; and the appearance of such a man as Daniel is described in that book to have been, is an indispensable requisite for the right understanding of this portion of the Jewish history.

3. An important hint of the existence of the book in the time of Alexander is found in Josephus, Antiq., xi. 8, 4, according to which the prophecies of Daniel had been pointed out to that king on his entrance into Jerusalem. It is true that the fact may have been somewhat embellished in its details by Josephus ; yet is it historically undeniable that Alexander did bestow great favors on the Jews, a circumstance which is not easily explained without granting the fact recorded by Josephus to be true in the main.

4. The first book of the Maccabees, which is almost contemporary with the events related in it, not only pre-supposes the existence of the book of Daniel, but actually betrays acquaintance with the Alexandrian version of the same ( 1 Mace. i. 54 ; comp. Dan. ix. 27; ii. 59; comp. Dan. iii.) — a proof that the book must have been written long before that period.

5. If the book had been written in the Maccabseari period, there would probably have been produced in that period some similar prophetic and apocalyptic productions, composed by Palestine Jews. Of such, however, not the slightest trace can anywhere be found ; so that our book — if of the Maccabaean time — thus forms an isolated enigmatic phenomenon in the later Jewish literature.

6. The reception of the book into the canon is also an evidence of its authenticity. In the Maccabaean age the canon had long been completed and closed; but even doubting that point, it is not likely that, at a time when so much scrupulous adherence was shown towards all that was hallowed by time and old usage, and when Scriptural literature was already flourishing — it is not probable, we say, that a production then recent should have been raised to the rank of a canonical book.

7. We have an important testimony for the authenticity of the book in Ezekiel xiv. 14, 20; xxviii. 3. Daniel is there represented as an unusual character, as a model of justice and wisdom, to whom had been allotted superior divine insight and revelation. This sketch perfectly agrees with that contained in pur book.

8. The book betrays such an intimate acquaintance with Chaldaean manners, customs, history, and religion, as none but a contemporary writer could fairly be supposed to possess. Thus, ex. gr., the description of the Chaldaean magians and their regulations perfectly agrees with the accounts of the classics respecting them. The account of the illness and insanity of Nebuchadnezzar is confirmed by Berosus (in Joseph, c. Apion. i. 20). The edict of Darius the Mede (Dan. v.) may be satisfactorily explained from the notions peculiar to the Medo-Persian religion, and the importance attached in it to the king, who was considered as a sort of incarnate deity.

9. The religious views, the ardent behef in the Messiah, the purity of that belief, the absence of all the notions and ceremonial practices of later Judaism, etc., the agreement of the book in these respects with the genuine prophetic books, and more especially with the prophets in and after the exile, — all this testifies to the genuineness of Daniel.

10. The linguistic character of the book is most decisive for its authenticity. In the first instance, the language in it, by turns Hebrew and Aramaean, is particularly remarkable. In that respect, the book bears a close analogy to that of Ezra. The author must certainly have been equally conversant with both languages — an attainment exactly suited to a Hebrew living in exile, but not in the least so to an author in the Maccabaean age, when the Hebrew had long since ceased to be a living language, and had been supplanted by the Aramaean vernacular dialect. The Hebrew in Daniel bears, moreover, a very great affinity to that in the other later books of the Old Testament; and has, in particular, idioms in common with Ezekiel. The Aramic, also, in the book differs materially from the prevailing dialect of the later Chaldaean paraphrastic versions of the Old Testament, and has much more relation to the idiom of the book of Ezra. — Kitto's Encyclop.