Daniel: Date & Historicity

Dani T. (CE3)

Date
• Two possibilities  date of composition has been hotly
disputed. Essentially two possible dates
o 6th Century BC
 Suggests that book was written by Daniel himself
 Traditional Jewish and Christian view
 Now abandoned by nearly all scholars except some
conservatives

o 2nd Century BC (c. 165BC)

 View of nearly all modern scholars- often without
reexamination.
• Driver is the big name  Based on 3 areas
o Historical
o Linguistic
o Theological
• So compelling the evidence… that it is possible to
almost pinpoint not only the year but the month
when it reached its present form… late 165BC 
Anderson
 Stories of Daniel and his friends handed down orally
• probably adapted in the process to convey
theological lessons to later generations in new
situations
 Visions were added in 2nd century (though chp 7 and other
parts might be a bit earlier)
• Retell recent history in form of ancient prophecy
and predict imminent overthrow of evil foes
• Purpose to encourage the jews in their resistance
• against Selecuid monarch
Lingusitic Issue
• One of difficulities of single author theory is the bilingual
nature
o Bilingual nature of one piece of literary work to be composed in
two languages  needs explanation
o Ezra can be explained according to form (narrative – Hebrew,
certain letters quoted in Aramaic)
 Not so with Daniel

• Part of problem is nature of Aramaic and Hebrew in Daniel

o Much recent development in our understanding of Aramaic and
so earlier linguistic theories, like Drivers, need to be re-
examined in light of this
 Driver  Aramaic of Daniel: western dialect spoken in
Palestine
 Recent discoveries  no longer classify Aramaic on
geographical basis but according to date and use
o Daniel presents Imperial/Official Aramaic
 Adopted by Persian admin and used throughout ANE from
6th-2nd Centuries
o Daniel’s Hebrew does not appear to be standard biblical Hebrew
 Appears heavily influenced by Aramaic
• Not impossible that Daniel himself spoke Aramaic-
flavoured Hebrew… after all he was deported at a
very young-age
o But if more comfortable in Aramaic why did
he write in both Aramaic AND Hebrew then
• Just as likely that it might reflect a post-exilic
situation where Hebrew would have been heavily
influenced by Aramaic
• Difficulty with Daniel s whether it represents a
clear stage in development of Hebrew or merely
Aramaic speak writing with broken Hebrew

• Suggestion that multiple authors/editors were involved helps overcome

the linguistic issue
 o However, at best this means Daniel is only one of the authors of
the book
o So for those who want to hold that Daniel was written by a
single author they need to come up with an answer which makes
sense of both date and language.

Theological Issue – Predictive Prophecy

• Conservatives analyse the problem on the basis of theology, especially
predictive prophecy.

• Most scholars place major concern of the visions in Daniel as the

Maccabean Crisis of 167-164
o Antiochus IV invading Jerusalem and revolt under the Maccabees

• The argument therefore is that those who propose the 6th Century date do
so on the basis of predictive prophecy
o God revealing to Daniel in 6thC what would happen in 2ndC
o Porphyry (3rd C) was first to suggest that predictive prophecy of
Daniel was actually just vaticinia ex eventu  prophecy after the
event
 Many scholars now follow his approach

• All Christian scholars acknowledge the possibility of predictive prophecy

o However, that is different to acknowledging the plausibility or
probability of it
o Many 2nd C advocates argues that while God does know the future
and can reveal it in advance he usually does not operate in this way
 Predictive prophecy is always relevant to the time of the
prophet and so if Daniel was written in the 6thC then it must
be directly relevant to readers in 6thC.
 Since the visionary portions of Daniel have little do with with
6thC, more probably written in 2ndC when it was relevant
o However, prophecy can also be divine comment given in hindsight
as well
 So classification of visions as prophetic does not mean they
have to apply to the future
 o Daniel is apocalyptic, which has some prophetic aspects, but is
different genre from prophetic genre.
 So should not weigh it down with anchor of prophetic
literature
 Issue of predictive prophecy becomes almost non-issue for
dating of Daniel

Historicity
• If Daniel was historical author  then lived in 6th C

• If this is the case then do we need to re-classify as proto-apocalyptic?

o Genuine apocalyptic employs pseudonymity where historical milieu
of implied author/main character is literary construct
o It is the historical milieu of real author which matters
 If Daniel was historical figure of 6thC then the milieu of that
time is not central to message of book
o But does all apocalyptic literature need to employ all the
conventions of the genre?
 Can be genuine apocalyptic without pseudonymity

• So is historicity of Daniel in 6th C central to message of book?

o Very significant since number of historical difficulties
o 3 views
• Requisite Historicity  it is crucial to theology of book and so
difficulties must be resolved
• Unreliable History  Daniel is historically unreliable,
demonstrating numerous factual errors
• Caricatured History  historical difficulties are not factual
errors but deliberate caricaturing for authors purposes

So we really need to address the historical details of Daniel…

Historical Details
Corroboration
• Part of problem is that for many events in Daniel there is no correlation
with secular documentation  historical corrbotation difficult
• The absence of corrobatory evidence leaves us with 3 ways to
understand the historicity of the book

i. Requisite Historicity  does not mean events did not happen. Some
events are recorded in only one source
ii. Unreliable History  does not mean events did not happen, but lends
support to argument that they are purely fictional or result of
faulty/fanciful memories
iii. Caricatured History  not important because no need to find this
evidence. Message of Daniel not to be tied to any one set of historical
events. Caricaturing requires exaggeration or distortion of known
historical events/entities

Siege of Jerusalem
o Jehoiakim  king of Judah 609BC
 Dan 1:1  siege of Jerusalem in his 3rd year (606BC?)
o Two problems
 This siege unattested in OT. Only time Jerusalem said to have
been besieged was 2 times after his death
• Reign of his son Jehoiachin (597BC)
• Reigh of Zedekiah (588-86BC)
 Only time Neb could have come to Jerusalem during reign of
Jehoiakim was in 605BC

i. Requisite Historicity  lot of details and date but the upshot is two fold
a. 2 Kings 24:1 (Jehoiakim made Neb’s servant for 3 years) alludes
to the effect of the siege written about in Daniel without refering
to the siege itself
b. Depending on how you date the accession year of Jehoiakim the
 dates can be made to fit with the 3rd year date in Dan 1:1

ii. Unreliable History  Attempt at above does not work at all. Neb didn’t
have time to besiege Jerusalem at the time Daniel says he did

iii. Caricatured History  date issues not important because Neb is just a
stereotypical foreign king and Jehoiakim stereotypical wicked king of
Judah

Figure of Daniel
• No mention of a Jew named Daniel holding high office in either
Babylonian or Persian administration
• Only Daniel in ANE literature is Dan’el in Ugartic literature  a
legendary hero
o But Ugarit destroyed in 13thC, so not him

i. Requisite Historicity
a. absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. There
are countless administrative officials of various empires whose
names are lost
b. Possible Ezekiel references him (14:14, 20, 28:3)  describing
him as very wise person.
i. Contemporaries – date in Dan 1:1 means Daniel deported
to Babylon 8 years before Ezkekiel giving him time to
forge his wise reputation
ii. Spelling discrepancy of his name not important
ii. Unreliable History
a. Fact that Daniel not mentioned outside Bible supports purely
fictional character
b. Daniel in Ezekiel cannot be same Daniel
i. Missing yod in the name
ii. Ezkiel referring to Dan’el of Urgatic literature
iii. Places him beside Noah and Job who were both foreigners
iv. Daniel would have been too young to have had such a big
reputation to be referred alongside Noah and Job
 c. Possible/Probably that biblical Daniel is derived from the Ugartic
Dan’el
i. Author uses the tradition and adds his own visions etc in
the name of Daniel derived from Dan’el.

iii. Caricatured History  not important if Daniel is entirely, loosely or not

at all fictional. The purpose of the book (a metanarrative to give hope
to God’s people) transcends any person of historicity.

Babylonian Names
• Daniel and his friends are all given unusual Babylonian names

i. Requisite Historicity
i. Says there is some precedence for the names
Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meschach & Abednego
ii. Slight differences between Babylonian originals and
names as seen in Daniel  due to bowdlerisation of
originals which were objectional to jews
ii. Unreliable History
i. Names do not have direct Babylonian etymologies
ii. They are perversions and suggests author tried to mimic
them
iii. Caricatured History  not important. What matters is that they sound
Babylonian. Purpose of names it to highlight the pressure put on Daniel
and his friends to abandon jewish identity. Expect author to parody the
name

Nebuchadnezzar’s Name
• Name in OT spelt with a r (Nebuchadrezzar)  but only in Ezekiel and
Jeremiah who were directly affected by his name. IN rest of OT
(including Daniel) always spent with a n (Nebuchadnezzar)

i. Requisite Historicity
 i. Spelling with an n in Daniel represents legitimate shift
from r  n (as per Berger).
ii. Does not mean author was not a contemporary
ii. Unreliable History
i. Spelling is inaccurate and incorrect.
ii. Reflects usage of an author who was not a contemporary
of him
iii. Caricatured History  not important. What matters is that the
caricature of Neb, who is portrayed as self-absorbed, childish, barbaric

Nebuchadnezzar’s Madness
• Chp 4 goes mad. No Babylonian or other ANE doctrines refer to this

i. Requisite Historicity
i. Possibly officially suppressed?
ii. Records from end of his reigh are very sketchy
iii. Any similarities between prayer of Nabonidus and Daniel
either coincidental or derived from Daniel
ii. Unreliable History
i. Dan 4 derived from older tradition about last king of
Babylon (Nabonidus, 556-539BC) who went from Babylon
to Arabian oasis for ten years where for 7 years he was
afflicted by some kind of inflammation where he had to be
put away from men
1. Idolater who is then absolved and healed by
anonymous jewish exorcist
ii. No corroborating evidence for Neb

iii. Caricatured History  origin of Dan 4 not important. Simply

lampooning foreign kings for pretentiousness and self-importance

King Belshazzar
 • He was never crowned as king

i. Requisite Historicity
o Until 20thC his rule was unknown in historical records
o But cuneiform texts published in 1929 name him as son of later
King (Nabonidus)
 He acted as a kind of de facto king
nd
o A 2 century author would have pleaced Nabonidus, who was
the last king of Babylon, in the palace that night rather than
forgotten Belshazzar. So this is an indication of historical
reliability
ii. Unreliable History
o Unlikely Belshazzar was a forgotten memory that quickly
o Dan 5  Bel reigning at time Babylonian Empire fell (539BC)
 Yet his father, Nabonidus, returned from his exile c 543BC
and was reigning at 539, not his son Bel.
 Indication of historical inaccuracy.

iii. Caricatured History  not crucial. What matters is that sons of

pretentious monarchs also turn out to be every bit as pretentious as
their fathers with no regard for God.

King Belshazzar
• Named as son of Nebuchadnezzar but his father was Nabonidus

i. Requisite Historicity
 Term father commonly denotes ancestor or forebear
 Whilst Nabonidus was not a descendant of Neb he did
hold high rank during his administration
• Possibly married Neb’s daughter and therefore Bel
might have been able to trace lineage back through
mother
ii. Unreliable History
• Factual error and no corroboration that Nabonidus
married Neb’s daughter.
• Speculation at best and probably wishful thinking
iii. Caricatured History  characters chose and used for their
idiosyncrasies and do not necessarily reflect real history. It is
characters of Nebuchadnezzar and Beltshazzar who serve the authors
intentions best.

Darius the Mede

• Babylonian empire said to fall at hands of Darius. But we know from
other biblical and extrabiblical sources that the empire fell to the
Persian King Cyrus in 539BC

i. Requisite Historicity
o Darius = Ugbaru who was Cryus’ military commander who led
capture of Babylon. Became a temporary governor and vassal
king of Babylon
o Darius = Gubaru who was a governor of Babylon after Ugbaru
(general who died not long after the conquest).
 Passive ‘Darius was made king over realm’ implies the
existence of a greater authority  Cyrus
o Darius = Cyrus  relies on a reading of 6:28 which is ‘vav
explicativum’  Darius that is (not and) the reign of Cyrus.
ii. Unreliable History
• There is simply no way to reconcile Darius the Mede with any
prominent figure known in overthrow of Babylon in 539BC. Each
option fails completely

iii. Caricatured History  no need to find a historical resolution to this

problem. Darius is simply the personfication of every Medo-Persian
king rolled into one. Darius was the most common name of Persian
kings (followed closely by Xerxes).
• Cyrus cast as successor to stereotypical Darius because he is the
liberator of the Jews and so appropriate that Daniel live on to his
reign
External Evidence

Qumran
• Eight fragments of Daniel dated to c 100bc
o Shows that it was accepted as authoritative
o Bruce  can’t help but notice the pervasive influence of Daniel
upon the thought and language of the sect
• But if we go with the five stage historical development, the narratives
of 1-6 probably had long life before the Maccabean crisis.
o Visionary material (7-12) added during the Maccabean crisis
probably gained rapid acceptance because of their association
with already revered figure of Daniel

Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus)

• Apocryphal book of Ben Sira is late 2nd BC translation of early 2nd BC
work.
o Amongst its materials is a list of famous Israelites from Scripture
o List is cited as evidence against early Daniel since it makes no
mention of him amongst heroes of past
 However, also neglects to mention Ezra from 5th C so
inconclusive