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  • From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dating Daniel
  • Date: Thu, 7 Jul 2005 12:58:08 +0100

Dear Jack,

See my comments below.

----- Original Message ----- From: <tladatsi AT charter.net>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 07, 2005 6:52 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Dating Daniel


Dr. Furuli et al.

I do not have an opinion on the actual dating of cthe
omposition of Daniel. However I do have an opinion on the
relevant
methodology.

1) There is an assumption that there was single author of
Daniel who wrote the entire work at one time. This
assumption may not be accurate. Parts of Daniel may have
been written by different authors at different times and
places. So portions may be 6th century BCE and others 2nd
century BCE, or indeed some time between. The assumption
of an *either / or* approach to assigning a specific period
of composition of the entire work needs to demonstrated and
not assumed.

It is correct that we cannot know whether parts of a biblical book were
written at different times or by different authors. However, Jesus (according
to Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14) speaks of "*the* prophet Daniel" who spoke
("wrote"), and the words to which Jesus refers are found in Daniel
9:27;11:31;12:11. This means, if we accept the words as uttered by Jesus, that chapters 9, 11, and 12 where believed to be written by *the* prophet Daniel by some in the first century C.E.

2) The proposal that Daniel was composed mid-2nd century
mainly lies in the fact that apocalyptic literature was in
not produced much in the 6th century BCE but was produced
much more extensively in the centuries following the 3rd
century BCE. This argument may be wrong, but it is not
circular.

If we have decided what the answer to a particular question is before we
start our research, I would say that our research is circular, even though
parts of this research may not be circular. There is very little substance
in 2) above, because the same argument can be used regarding all the
biblical books. The oldest DSS are dated in the third century B.C.E., and
the argument from silence is that the biblical books were not yet written in the sixth century C.E. While
2) above in itself is not circular, the permise on which it builds is so.


3) Just as there is not textual claim in the book of Job
that Job wrote the book of Job, nowhere in Daniel is it
claimed that Daniel wrote to book of Daniel, or even that
there was a single author. This of course contrasted with
Jeremiah were it is explicitly stated that the text is the
?words of Jeremiah?, although there is no claim it was he
who wrote them down or that they were written down by one
individual.

4) Dating Daniel to either the 6th century or 2nd century
does not in any way depend on the objective existence of
God, the subjective acknowledgement of the existence of
God, the acceptance of divine inspiration of the Biblical
authors, or even the belief in prophecy. It is quite
possible to believe that Daniel was divinely inspired and
prophetic and that it was written in the 2nd century BCE,
the 6th century BCE, both, in some other century, or in
more than one century.

One?s personal principles of faith are not diagnostic as to
the dating Daniel.

A person believing that Daniel, or parts of the book, were written in the
second century B.C.E. may of course believe in God and in divine inspiration
just as much as one believing in a sixth century writing. But this is not
the point! The important question is why scholars give the book of Daniel a
second century dating. And here the question of divine inspiration is the
principal one. The case was opened in the eighteenth century C.E. by the
German scholar J. C. Döderlein, who claimed that Isaiah 40-66 must have been
written by a "second" Isaiah because it is impossible to predict the future.
The same viewpoint regarding other prophecies, including Daniel, was adopted
by many scholars following him, and this view is probably held by the majority of
scholars today.

In Daniel chapter 11 we find a written "history," In chapter 10 "Daniel"
writes in the first person, and the account of chapter 11 starts with "the
first year of Darius the Mede". The writer states (11:2) that he will
tell what is going to happen in the future. And here is the crux. If a
scholar should take the text at face value and accept the claim that it was
written in the sixth century B.C.E. s/he has to accept that a detailed
account of the future could be given a long time before the events. This
would be tantamount to accepting divine inspiration. But metaphysical
explanations are excluded in scientific research. Therefore, the claim of
the text itself of a sixth century writing is rejected, and because the the last
part of chapter 11 seems to give details of the reign of Antiochus IV
Epiphanes, the scholarly consensus is that Daniel was written in the second
century B.C.E. (some scholars would say that parts of it may have been written before, and that they may have been included in the second century work). A good way to test my claim that rejection of divine inspiration (detailed predictions of the future) is the basic reason for a second century dating, is to ask: How many scholars who date the book of Daniel to c. 160 B.C.E. are willing to consider the *possibility* that the "historical account" of Daniel 11:1-20 were written in the sixth century C.E? I guess that almost all of them would a priori rule this out.

From a scholarly point of view the OT should be studied in its own right and
not in light of the NT. However, from a descriptive point of view we note that Jesus` words (Matthew 24:15) regarding BDELUGMA ERHMWSEWS in Dan 11:31 (and 9:27; 12:11) refer to the future. So, some living in the first century C.E. did not agree with modern scholars regarding the application of the words of the last part of Daniel chapter 11 to Entiochos IV Epiphanes.

Please note, that my arguments above are descriptive and not normative. I am not
arguing in favor of a particular position, but I try to give an account of the model or paradigm that influence scholars. I do not criticize scholars who stick to the scientific principle of rejecting any metaphysical explanation. But an honest course would be to admit this, and as far as Daniel i concerned, to admit that the basic argument for a second century dating is the view that the future cannot be predicted.


Best regards


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


Jack Tladatsi
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