Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Just one comment:

On Wednesday 15 March 2006 13:53, Herman Meester wrote:
> 2006/3/15, Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>:

[snip]
> > By the way, where do you get the idea that the book
> > of Daniel was Hellenistic? Daniel wrote well over a
> > century before Alexander the Great was born. Or was
> > Hellenism the idea already suffused throughout
> > Babylon and Persia during the Exile?
>
> Needless to say Daniel is one of the controversial books of the
> Hebrew/Aramaic Bible. First, it seems that Daniel belongs to the
> pseudepigraphical tradition in which anonymous writers hide behind
> legendary "types" (τυποι) such as Daniel, or Job. Daniel, as a
> legendary sage, is already found in Ugaritic texts. 

The name, or one similar to it (it's actually dn'il, without the yod in the 
middle) is in the Ugaritic texts; we have no real clue whether there's any 
actual relationship between that character and the one in the biblical book, 
but considering that on your own dating there's some 1200 years between them, 
I find it doubtful.  Using Ugaritic as a tool for explaining the book of 
Daniel (especially dating it) is leaning on a broken reed, as my dad used to 
say.

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Fame is fleeing, as good old Whatsisname used to say.