The Date of the Book of Daniel

Bruce K. Waltke
INTRODUCTION THE DISPUTE

The Book of Daniel purports to record historical episodes in the life of Daniel and visions he saw predicting the future course of Israel's history from the Neo-Babylonian era to the establishment of God's kingdom on earth. The book dates these historical incidents and visions in the life of Daniel during the Neo-Babylonian era (i.e., 606-539 B.c.) and into the early Persian era (i.e., 539 to about 535 B.c.) Accordingly, the uniform view of Hebrew and Christian tradition was that Daniel was a historic person who composed his book in the sixth century B.c. But this view has not gone unchallenged. One of the first to question this outlook was the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry, who lived in the third century after Christ. During a period of residence in Sicily, he wrote a fifteen-volume work entitled Against the Christians, in which he endeavored to refute the leading tenets of Christianity. Porphyry commenced his reasoning from the a priori assumption that there could be no predictive element in prophecy (si quid autem ultra opinatus sit, quia futura nescient, esse mentitum), so that the Book of Daniel could be only historical in nature, and therefore of a late date. This formidable heathen antagonist of the Christian faith maintained that the author of Daniel had lied in order to revive the hopes of the contemporary Jews in the midst of their adversities.
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The German literary critical movement seized avidly on Porphyry's supposition that the book could contain no predictive element, and with Porphyry repudiated the Jewish and Christian tradition of a sixth century B.c. date of composition for the book, despite the arguments of some conservative scholars. Harrison, professor of Old Testament at the University of Toronto, writes: "Objections to the historicity of Daniel were copied uncritically from book to book, and by the second decade of the twentieth century no scholar of general liberal background who wished to preserve his academic reputation either dared or desired to challenge the current critical trend." 1
THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY

This issue is of greatest importance for at least three reasons. First, the sovereignty of the revealed God in this book is at stake. If Daniel's God was able to predict the future, then there is reason to believe that the course of history is completely under Yahweh's sovereignty. On the other hand, if the predictions are fraudulent, then one must remain agnostic about Daniel's God. Second, the divine inspiration of the Bible hangs in the balance. If the book contains true predictions, then there is firm reason to believe that this book ultimately owes its origin to One who can predict the future. On the contrary, if it is a spurious, fraudulent, although wellintentioned piece of literature, then the reliability of other books in the canon of Scripture may legitimately be questioned. Third, one's understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ depends on the answer to the date of the book. Jesus Christ regarded the Book of Daniel as a prophetic preview of future history and indeed of the divine program for a future that still lies ahead (Matt. 24:15-16; Mark 13:14; Luke 21:20). If He is wrong in His interpretation of the book, then He must be less than the omniscient, inerrant God incarnate. On the other hand, if His appraisal is right, then His claim to deity cannot be questioned in this regard.
THE METHOD

By what accredited methods can the Book of Daniel be dated? To decide the issue, the book's manuscript evidence, linguistic character, historical accuracy, and prediction of future events occurring after the time of the Maccabees will be discussed.
1 R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1969), p. 1111.

The Date of the Book of Daniel / 321 THE MANUSCRIPT EVIDENCE

The discovery of manuscripts of Daniel at Qumran dating from the Maccabean period renders it highly improbable that the book was composed during the time of the Maccabees. In Apercus prliminaires Dupont-Sommer reports that "The owners of seventeen different fragments of Daniel are known, but there are certainly several others." 2 This evidence demonstrates the popularity of Daniel with the Qumran Covenanteers. One Dead Sea scroll cannot be dated later than 120 B.C. on the basis of its paleography.3 Equivalent manuscript finds at Qumran of other books where the issue of predictive prophecy is not in question have led scholars to repudiate a Maccabean date for their compositions. For example, Brownlee, professor of religion at the Claremont Graduate School, writes: Frank Cross has indicated that one of the Psalms manuscripts from Cave Four attests so-called Maccabean psalms at a period which is roughly contemporary with their supposed composition. If this is true, it would seem that we should abandon the idea of any of the canonical psalms being of Maccabean date, for each song had to win its way in the esteem of the people before it could be included in the sacred compilation of the Psalter. Immediate entre for any of them is highly improbable.4 Burrows follows the same line of reasoning with respect to the date of Ecclesiastes: The script [of two scrolls of Ecclesiastes found in Cave Four] indicates a date near the middle of the second century B.C. This is not much later than the time at which many scholars have thought the book was originally written. We cannot tell, of course, how old the book was when this particular copy was made, but the probability of its composition in the third century, if not earlier, is somewhat enhanced by finding the manuscript probably not written much after 150 B.C.5 Likewise, Myers, professor of Old Testament at the Lutheran Theological Seminary, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, wrote, "The discovery
2 Cited by H. H. Rowley, The Zadokite Fragments and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1956), p. 7. 3 William H. Brownlee, The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls for the Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), p. 36. 4 Ibid., pp. 29-30. 5 Millar Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking Press, 1958), p. 171.

322 / Bibliotheca Sacra October-December 1976

of a fragment of Chronicles at Qumran renders a Maccabean date virtually impossible for any part of Chronicles."6 But critical scholars have refused to draw the same conclusion in the case of Daniel even though the evidence is identical. For example, in the work cited above by Brownlee, he avers the 165 B.c. date in spite of the evidence. His refusal to allow the evidence to lead him to the more probable conclusion that Daniel was composed before the Maccabean era is the more astonishing because along with others he thinks that the late pious forger of Daniel made a mistake in one of his predictions. He reasoned, "The predicted end of Antiochus in 11:40-45 differs from the stories of his death in I and II Maccabees and hence it presumably represents real prediction on the part of the author of Daniel which was never fulfilled."7 But if this be so, it seems incredible that the alleged contemporaries would have held his work in such high regard referring to him as "Daniel the prophet," a title bestowed on him in a florilegium found in 4Q.
T H E LANGUAGE OF DANIEL

Speaking of the language in Daniel, S. R. Driver once delivered a famous dictum: "The Persian words presuppose a period after the Persian empire had been well established; the Greek words demand, the Hebrew supports, and the Aramaic permits, a date after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great (332 B . C . ) . " 8 From Driver's classic statement of the linguistic evidence in 1897 to the commentary by Porteous in 1965, 9 there has been no reappraisal of the evidence by literary critics of Daniel in spite of the increasing mass of evidence that the language of Daniel can no longer be regarded as belonging to the second century B.c.
THE ARAMAIC OF DANIEL

Scholars have divided the Aramaic language into the following periods: old Aramaic, official Aramaic, and, of interest here, western Aramaic. The studies of Rosenthal have shown that the kind of Aramaic employed in Daniel was that which grew up in the courts and chancellories from the seventh century B.C. on and subsequently
6 Jacob M. Myers, / Chronicles, The Anchor Bible (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co., 1965), p. 165. 7 Brownlee, The Meaning of the Qumran Scrolls, pp. 35-36. 8 S. R. Driver, Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament, 5th ed. (New York: Meridian Library, 1960), p. 508 (italics his). 9 Norman W. Porteous, Daniel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965).

The Date of the Book of Daniel / 323

became widespread in the Near East.10 Therefore, it cannot be employed as evidence for a late date of the book, and in fact it constitutes a strong argument for a sixth-century B.C. period of composition. Kitchen, professor of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool, concludes that the Aramaic sections of Daniel ( 2 : 4 b 7:28) are by nature closely akin to the language of the fifth-century B.C. Elephantine papyri and that of Ezra about 450 B.C. 11 While the Aramaic of Daniel fits comfortably into the period of official Aramaic, it does not comport well with the Aramaic of the Genesis Apocryphon discovered in Qumran Cave One and dated in the first century B.C. From the standpoint of spelling, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary, it is now possible to determine within quite narrow limits what would have been likely or possible back in 168 B.C., so far as literary Aramaic is concerned. Archer, professor of Old Testament at the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, made a detailed linguistic analysis of the five columns of this text and concluded, "By way of summary it may be said that the Genesis Apocryphon furnishes very powerful evidence that the Aramaic of Daniel comes from a considerably earlier period than the second
century B.C." 1 2
PERSIAN LOAN WORDS

Kitchen concluded that the Persian loan words in Daniel are consistent with an earlier rather than a later date for the composition of the book. His conclusion rests on at least three lines of evidence. First, he notes that it need not be as surprising as Driver supposed that Persian words should be used of Babylonian institutions prior to the conquest of Cyrus, since the work was written in the Persian rather than the Neo-Babylonian period. After considering the scope of Persian words borrowed into Aramaic during the Persian Empire, he concludes, "The almost unconscious assumption that Persian words would take time to penetrate into Aramaic (i.e., well after 539 B.C.) is erroneous." 13 He continues: . . . if a putative Daniel in Babylon under the Persians (and who had briefly served them) were to write a book some time after the
10 Franz Rosenthal, Die Aramaistische Forschung (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1939), pp. 66ff. 11 Kenneth A. Kitchen, et al., "The Aramaic of Daniel," Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel (London: Tyndale Press, 1965), pp. 31-79. 12 Gleason L. Archer, Jr., "The Aramaic of the 'Genesis Apocryphon' Compared with the Aramaic of Daniel," in New Perspectives on the Old Testament, ed. J. Barton Payne (Waco, T X : Word Books, 1970), p. 169. 13 Kitchen, "The Aramaic of Daniel," p. 4 1 .

324 / Bbliotheca Sacra October-December 1976

third year of Cyrus (Dn. 10:1), then a series of Persian words is no surprise. Such a person in the position of close contact with Persian administration that is accorded to him in the book would have to acquire and use in his Aramaic many terms and words from his new Persian colleagues (just like the Elamite scribes of Persepolis), from the conquest by Cyrus onwards.14 Second, Kitchen notes that in four of the nineteen words in question, the old Greek renderings made about 100 B.C. are hopelessly mere guesswork. He reasons: If the first important Greek translation of Daniel was made sometime within 100 B.C. to A.D. 100, roughly speaking, and the translator could not (or took no trouble to) reproduce the proper meaning of these terms, then one conclusion imposes itself: their meaning was already lost and forgotten (or, at least, drastically changed) long before he set to work. Now if Daniel were wholly a product of 165 B.C., then just a century or so in a continuous tradition is surely embarrassingly inadequate as a sufficient interval for that loss (or change) of meaning to occur by Near Eastern standards.15 Third, in the interest of objectivity, he notes that the Persian terms found in Daniel are specifically old Persian words, that is, they occurred within the history of the language to about 300 B.C. 1 6
THE GREEK WORDS IN DANIEL

One can no longer echo the dictum that the three Greek words depicting the musical instruments in Daniel 3 demand a date after 330 B.C. Greek words are now attested in the Aramaic documents of Elephantine dated to the fifth century B.C. For example, one document refers to a "stater" as the ksp jwn, meaning "silver of Greece." Rabinowitz has pointed up an additional three other words that are possibly Greek words in the Elephantine papyri.17 Montgomery recognized in his great commentary on Daniel the weakness of Driver's argument. He wrote: "The rebuttal of this evidence for a low date lies in stressing the potentialities of Greek influence in the Orient from the sixth century and onward." 18 Yamauchi, who teaches in the Department of History at Miami University, 14 Ibid., pp. 41-42. 15 Ibid., p. 43. 16 Ibid., pp. 43-44. 17 Jacob Rabinowitz, "Grecians and Greek Terms in the Aramaic Papyri," Biblica 39 (1958): 76-82. 18 James A. Montgomery, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Book of Daniel (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927), p. 22.

The Date of the Book of Daniel / 325

Oxford, Ohio, convincingly demonstrated this context with an overwhelming evidence in his book. As a result of his investigation he concluded, 'The only element of surprise to this writer is that there are not more Greek words in such documents." 19
HISTORICAL ACCURACY

Critics consistently allege that the author of Daniel could not have been an eyewitness of the events he records because of his numerous historical blunders. Characteristically, they point out at least two historical errors. First, they allege that the first verse of the book conflicts with the testimony of Jeremiah (Jer. 25:1, 9; 46:2) who correlates the first year of Nebuchadnezzar with the fourth year of Jehoiakim. Second, they allege that Daniel thought that the second and third kingdoms succeeding the Babylonian kingdom were Media and Persia whereas it is now known that Cyrus, king of Persia, conquered the Medes in 550 B.C., and the Medes in conjunction with the Persians overthrew Babylonia in 539 B.C. These two allegations will now be refuted and in addition positive evidence from Daniel 5 will be brought to light in order to refute the contention that the book must have been written centuries after the sixth century because of its inaccuracy in recording history.
DANIEL 1:1

It should be noted that the book does not say, as Anderson asserts, that Nebuchadnezzar "took Jerusalem" in his 605 B.C. campaign. Wiseman, professor of Assyriology at the University of London, rightly appraises the events in Nebuchadnezzar's campaign into Syro-Palestine during his accession year of 605. He says: "The effects of the Babylonian victory were immediate and far-reaching. 'At that time,' recorded the Chronicler, 'Nebuchadnezzar conquered the whole area of Haiti,' the geographical term Hatti including, at this period, the whole of Syria and Palestine."20 Wiseman then adds, "The effect on Judah was that king Jehoiakim, a vassal of Necho, submitted voluntarily to Nebuchadnezzar, and some Jews, including the prophet Daniel, were taken as captives or hostages to Babylon." 21 But how can one square the statement in Daniel 1:1 that Nebuchadnezzar in his first year as king besieged Jerusalem in the third
19 Edwin M. Yamauchi, Greece and Babylon (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1967), p. 94. 20 Donald J. Wiseman, Chronicles of the Chaldean Kings (626556 B.C.) (London: British Museum, 1961), p. 25. 21 Ibid., p. 26.

326 / Bibliotheca Sacra October-December 1976

year of Jehoiakim with the statement in Jeremiah 25:1, 9; 46:1 that Nebuchadnezzar defeated Pharaoh Necho in the fourth year of Jehoiakim? Edwin Thiele harmonizes this conflicting date by proposing that Daniel is using the Babylonian system of dating the king's reign whereas Jeremiah is using the Palestinian system of dating.22 In Babylonia the year in which the king ascended the throne was designated specifically as "the year of accession to the kingdom," and this was followed by the first, second, and subsequent years of rule. In Palestine, on the other hand, there was no accession year as such, so that the length of rule was computed differently, with the year of accession being regarded as the first year of the king's reign. If this plausible explanation is correct, the alleged contradiction actually supports a sixth century date for the book. Had the author Daniel been an unknown Jew of the second century B.C., it is unlikely that he would have followed the obsolete Babylonian chronological system of computation in preference to his own Palestinian method, which had the sanction of so important a personage as the prophet Jeremiah.
THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE SECOND KINGDOM

Whereas most critics interpret the symbols of the visions recorded in chapters 2 and 7 as referring to Babylonia, Media, Persia, and Greece respectively, the clear notices in the book refute this interpretation as the following evidence demonstrates. Young, the late professor of Old Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary, painstakingly shows that the word of the mystic in Daniel 5:29 implied that the Neo-Babylonian kingdom was to succeed to a dual monarchy, with the Persians (paras) rather than the Medes as the dominant power.23 When Darius the Mede established his administration, he was immediately subject to the "laws of the Medes and Persians" (Dan. 6:8, 12, 15), which would not have been the case if Media had been an independent kingdom at that time. In addition, the symbolism of chapter 7 distinctly favors interpreting the second kingdom as Medo-Persia and the third as Greece. Archer states the case well:
22 Edwin R. Thiele, The Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1965), pp. 163, 165. 23 Edward J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949), p. 127.

The Date of the Book of Daniel / 327

The symbolism of Daniel 7 precludes the possibility of identifying the second empire as Media and the third as Persia. In this chapter, the first kingdom is represented by a lion. (All scholars agree that this represents the Chaldean or Babylonian realm.) The second kingdom appears as a bear devouring three ribs. This would well correspond to the three major conquests of the Medo-Persian empire: Lydia, Babylon and Egypt (under Cyrus the Great and Cambyses). The third empire is represented as a leopard with four wings and four heads. There is no record that the Persian empire was divided into four parts, but it is well known that the empire of Alexander the Great separated into four parts subsequent to his death, namely, Macedn, Asia Minor, the Seleucid empire (including Syria, Babylonia, and Persia), and Egypt. The natural inference, therefore, would be that the leopard represented the Greek empire.24 One should also note that the bear is raised on one side, which comports well with the division of the Medo-Persian Empire with Persia being the greater of the two. Finally, in Daniel 8:20-21 the text clearly states that the kingdom of Medo-Persia will be overthrown by Greece. The main argument in favor of identifying the second and third kingdoms as Media and Persia successively is the statement that Darius, the Mede, received the kingdom (Dan. 5:31; 11:1). Who is this Darius the Mede? Whitcomb, professor of Old Testament at Grace Theological Seminary, sets forth powerful cumulative evidence to show that Darius the Mede is to be identified with a governor named Gubaru, who is referred to both by the cuneiform records and by the Greek historians as playing a key role in the capture of Babylon and its subsequent administration. After carefully perusing all the ancient inscriptions referring to Ugbaru, Gubaru, and Gaubaruva, he concludes : It is our conviction that Gubaru, the governor of Babylon and the region beyond the river, appears in the book of Daniel as Darius the Mede, the monarch who took charge 'of the Chaldean kingdom immediately following the death of Belshazzar, and who appointed satraps and presidents (including Daniel) to assist him in the governing of this extensive territory with its many peoples. We believe that this identification is the only one which satisfactorily harmonizes the various lines of evidence which we find in the book of Daniel and in the contemporary cuneiform records.25
24 Gleason L. Archer, Survey of Introduction to the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1964), p. 383. 25 John C. Whitcomb, Darius the Mede (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1959), p. 24.

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In this conclusion he has the support of the great authority Albright who likewise says : It seems to me highly probable that Gobryas did actually assume the royal dignity along with the name "Darius," perhaps an old Iranian royal title, while Cyrus was absent on a European campaign. . . . After the cuneiform elucidation of the Belshazzar mystery, showing that the latter was long co-regent with his father, the vindication of Darius the Mede for history was to be expected. . . . We may safely expect the Babylonian Jewish author to be acquainted with the main facts of the Neo-Babylonian history.26 If then the second and third kingdoms refer to Medo-Persia and Greece respectively, the fourth kingdom must be Rome. In this case, even those who contend for a Maccabean date of authorship must admit true prediction in the Book of Daniel for the Roman Empire did not appear in Israel's history until 63 B.c.
DANIEL 5

The appearance of King Belshazzar in chapter 5 was interpreted by earlier critics to be unhistorical inasmuch as all the classic historians presented Nabonidus as the last king of Babylon and never mentioned Belshazzar. However, comparing the statements of Daniel 5 with the cuneiform evidence that later became available, Dougherty came to the firm conclusion that the view that the chapter originated in the Maccabean period was thoroughly discreditable. These archaeological discoveries showed that for much of the reign of Nabonidus, his eldest son, Belshazzar, acted as coregent. When Nabonidus took up residence in Tema, Belshazzar exercised sole rule in Babylonia, and for this reason was represented as the last king of Babylon in Daniel (Dan. 5:30). 27 It seems clear, then, from a straightforward reading of the narratives in the Book of Daniel that the author possessed a more accurate knowledge of Neo-Babylonia and early Achaemenid Persian history than any other known historian since the sixth century B.c. Even Pfeiffer, who was one of the more radical critics of Daniel, was compelled to concede that it will presumably never be known how the author learned that the new Babylon was the creation of Nebuchadnezzar, as the excavations have proved, and that Belshazzar, mentioned only in Babylonian records, in Daniel, and in Baruch
26 William F. Albright, "The Date and Personality of the Chronicler," Journal of Biblical Literature 40 (1921): 11, fn. 2. 27 R. P. Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1929), pp. 59ff., 194.

The Date of the Book of Daniel / 329 ( 1 : 1 ) , which is based on Daniel, was functioning as king when 28 Cyrus took Babylon in 539 B.C. There is no mystery, however, for as Albright and Dougherty admit, the chapter is from the hand of a person contemporary with the events.
PREDICTIONS OF EVENTS A F T E R 165 B.C.

Daniel, in addition to predicting that Rome will succeed Greece, also predicts the very date that Israel's Messiah will be crucified. In Daniel 9:24 the writer predicts that 69 "weeks" ( = 483 years) after the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem Messiah will be "cut off." Artaxerxes issued this decree in the month Nisan of his twentieth year of 444 B.C. (Neh. 2:2). Hoehner demonstrates that Jesus Christ was crucified on the Passover in the year A.D. 33. The time interval between the first of Nisan (444 B.C.) and the Passover (A.D. 33) is 173,880 days (476 365 = 173,740 days; March 4 [1 NisanJ to March 29 [the date of the Passover in A.D. 33] = 24 days; add 116 for leap years). Now a prophetic year (also a lunar year) is 360 days (cf. Rev. 11) and 483 years multiplied by that figure also equal 173,880 days. 29 Here then is confirmatory proof that the book contains genuine predictions.
CONCLUSION

But the question naturally arises, If the evidence for a sixthcentury date of composition is so certain, why do scholars reject it in favor of an unsupportable Maccabean hypothesis? The reason is that most scholars embrace a liberal, naturalistic, and rationalistic philosophy. Naturalism and rationalism are ultimately based on faith rather than on evidence; therefore, this faith will not allow them to accept the supernatural predictions. Archer states the point well: "The committed antisupernaturalist, who can only explain the successful predictions of Daniel as prophecies after the fulfillment, . . . is not likely to be swayed by any amount of objective evidence whatever." 30 28 R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to the Old Testament (New York: Harper & Bros., 1941), pp. 758ff. 29 Harold Hoehner, "Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ; Part VI: Daniel's Seventy Weeks and New Testament Chronology," Bibliotheca Sacra 132 (January-March 1975): 47-65. 30 Gleason L. Archer, Jr., 'Old Testament History and Recent Archaeology from the Exile to Malachi," Bibliotheca Sacra 127 (October-December 1970): 297.

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