Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Medina, Vincent" <VMedina AT cbcag.edu>]

I think it is possible to believe in the inspiration of the book of
Daniel while, at the same time, accepting the possibility that someone
else is responsible for the book as we have it. The first person
portions of the book (chs. 7-12) give every appearance of coming from
Daniel himself, while the third person reports (1:1-7:1) could easily
have come from another person who was responsible for the final
redaction of the book. The date of that redaction is unknown. 

 

However, if a person dates Daniel to the 2nd century purely on the
grounds that a sixth century prophet could not have predicted the future
in such detail, that person is clearly operating out of a naturalistic
world-view and out to admit it. If someone dates Daniel to the 2nd
century on the grounds that the apocalyptic genre was not in evidence
before that time, that person must reject the text's claim that the
apocalyptic portions of Daniel (chs. 7-12) came from Daniel himself, and
must adopt some other theory of attribution. This does not necessarily
require that person to reject the inspiration of the text, but it does
require them to accept a view that grants fictional/pseudepigraphal
accounts the status of Scripture. I, for one, find that problematic. By
putting chapters 7-12 in the first person, the text is claiming the 6th
century prophet, Daniel as the source of these materials. It is hard to
see how one can reject that claim and still regard the document to be
inspired-unless, of course, on subscribes to a view of inspiration that
allows the inspired text to misrepresent itself, or to embrace a pious
fraud.

 

G. Vincent Medina

Associate Professor

Central Bible College

Phone: 417 887-6559

Email: vmedina AT cbcag.edu