Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 09.18 21/06/99 -0400, Fred P Miller wrote:

>Yes it is true that arguments for a late date for Daniel are based on
internal
>evidence only.  The material in Daniel 11 especially and the 2300 day
prophecy of
>chapter 8 is too detailed to be anything other than the truth or a clever
literary
>device (a fraud) written after the facts.  

I always get people pushing the "it's either true or it's a fraud"
dichotomy, as though they were the only possibilities. My teeth usually go
on edge. This approach is merely a retrojection of a modern simplistic
approach to text types. It has no real relevance to the range of text types
actually available. As a simple example, was the 2300 days and nights
written as a prophecy as such or as a means of raising the spirits of those
fighting the Seleucids and their proxies in Jerusalem? Or the speeches that
are found in most ancient literature: are they to be taken as frauds or as
attempts by the historians to get the spirit of what should have been said
at the time?

>There is plenty of HISTORICAL reference
>evidence to date Daniel earlier than the Macabbean period but no empirical
evidence,
>nor quotations of the book of Daniel in literature that can be dated
before Antiochus
>Epiphanes, about 165 BCE, which is the critical date.  The only historical
references
>to the book or to the LXX which without doubt contained the translation of
Daniel are
>ignored.  The only reason for ignoring them is the internal content of the
book which
>is indeed miraculous if an early date is confirmed.
>
>The presence of Aramaic in portions of Ezra and Daniel should confirm the
use of
>Aramaic in Babylon before 400 BCE rather than being a proof for a late
date for
>Daniel.

The Aramaic is one sure indication that it was written late. The lack of
knowledge of Persian Chancelry Aramaic is shown to be evident by Giovanni
Garbini, Professor of Semitic languages at Rome's "La Sapienza" University,
in a paper I have translated and placed on a web page

             www.geocities.com/Paris/LeftBank/5210/histreli.htm

It's like signs you see in bakery shops, Ye Olde Baker, as an attempt to
give the flavour of Shakespearean English.

The length of time till the end keeps changing in the second part of
Daniel, 1150 days and 1150 nights, 3 1/2 years (a time, two times and half
a time, approx. 1250 days), 1290 days, 1335 days as the necessity to adjust
keeps cropping up.

On the web page already cited there is a link to some background
information to the structure of the visions of Daniel as well as the
information the book supplies on the Seleucid/Ptolemy struggles.


Ian