DANIEL, BOOK OF Dăn’ yĕl (דָּֽנִיֵּ֜אל), LXX Δανιήλ, G1248. This book was placed in the Ketuḇim or third section of the Heb. Canon, but in Eng. VSS it occurs as the fourth major composition in the prophetic writings, following the order of the Alexandrian canon.

Outline

1. Historical background. The period of time covered by the historical and visionary sections of the book is slightly in excess of the full period of Heb. exile in Babylonia. Daniel was apparently taken by Nebuchadnezzar to Babylon along with other Judean hostages in 605 b.c., following a Babylonian attempt to subjugate Judah. This would indicate that he was descended from a noble family, since normally only prominent persons were taken captive in this manner. According to the book, the attributive author was trained for service in the royal court, and it was not long before he gained an outstanding reputation as a seer and wise man. With divine help he was able to recall and interpret visions which other men had had, and subsequently he experienced several visions himself by which he was able to predict the future triumph of the Messianic kingdom. The book covers the activities of Daniel under successive rulers including Belshazzar and Darius the Mede. His last recorded vision occurred on the banks of the river Tigris in the third year of Cyrus, i.e., 536 b.c. Thus the historical period involved corresponds to slightly more than the full extent of the Heb. exile, after the decree of Cyrus had been promulgated in 538 b.c. The background of both the historical and visionary sections is clearly Babylonian, and there is no question as to whether the author was ever in any other place than Babylonia during his mature years. Babylonian traditions and imagery are clearly in evidence, and the book reflects precisely the same historical background as that found in Ezekiel. Quite possibly the Book of Daniel covers a greater length of time than that of his contemporary Ezekiel, since the latter has no specific references to the Pers. regime as master of the contemporary political scene.

2. Unity. The book falls quite readily into two distinct sections comprising chs. 1 to 6, which consist of narratives set against an historical background, and chs. 7 to 12, which contain the visions experienced by Daniel. There seems little doubt that similarity of subject matter was the primary reason for such an arrangement. Although a general chronological order was followed in the first six chs., it was modified in the remainder of the book in favor of relating the various visions to one another in terms of theme and content rather than the actual time when they occurred. This division indicates that the Book of Daniel was compiled as a literary bifid, furnishing in effect a two-volume work whose parts could circulate independently if necessary and still provide an adequate understanding of the prophet’s activities and outlook. The compilation of works in bifid form was by no means uncommon in antiquity, and in the case of large books like Isaiah it served to reduce the composition to more manageable proportions without at the same time losing any of the essential teachings of the author concerned. Elementary though this bifid division is, a great many scholars have failed to recognize it as a genuine literary structure. Consequently a number of contributing authors have been suggested for the book in some circles, ranging up to nine different hands. Yet, concurrent with theories of multiple authorship have been staunch avowals of the unity of Daniel from both liberal and conservative sources. The wide diversity of opinion regarding the unity of the book is unfortunately self-defeating, and reflects unfavorably upon the critical methods employed. It is now no longer possible to maintain the diversity of authorship of the work on the ground that it contains two languages, an Aram. section (Dan 2:4b-7:28) enclosed by a Heb. prologue and epilogue (1:1-2:4a; 8:1-12:13). As the result of archeological discoveries it is now known that the ancient Mesopotamian writers not infrequently enclosed the main body of a unified literary work within a linguistic form of a contrasting nature in order to heighten the general effect. This is true of such notable compositions as the Code of Hammurabi, where the principal prose section was prefaced and concluded by means of poetic material. Exactly the same compositional technique can be seen in the Book of Job, where a prose prologue and epilogue enclose a large poetic section. The Book of Daniel is yet another example of a unified and consciously constructed literary integer involving different linguistic components, and once the underlying compositional traditions are recognized, the need for postulating a diversity of authorship on this ground disappears.

3. Authorship and special problems. The question of the authorship of Daniel is closely linked with considerations of date, particularly since modern critical scholarship has been virtually unanimous in its rejection of the book as a 6th cent. b.c. document written by Daniel. If the book was composed by an unknown author during the Maccabean period with the aim of encouraging faithful Jews in their resistance to the Hellenizing policies of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (cf. 1 Macc 2:59, 60), as critics have long maintained, it must have been written about 165 b.c., and therefore could not possibly have been the work of Daniel. So diametrically opposed are these views of authorship that the problems which they raise must be given some consideration. The traditional opinion of authorship maintained that the book was in its final form during or shortly after the lifetime of Daniel, and that both the historical experiences through which he passed and the visions received were of a genuine nature. In ascribing authorship to Daniel within this general period the traditional view does not overlook the possibility that Daniel may have had scribal assistance in the compilation of his work, esp. if the finished product can be regarded in any sense as his memoirs. In any event, however, the traditional view could not place the extant form of the book later than half a cent. after the time of Daniel’s death.

The critical view of authorship and date can be said to have begun with Porphyry, a 3rd cent. a.d. neo-Platonic philosopher, who took special issue with the leading tenets of Christianity. His comments on Daniel have only survived in quotation form, but show that his objections to the traditional view were based on the a priori supposition that there could be no predictive element as such in prophecy. Hence the predictions in Daniel relating to post-Babylonian kings and wars were not really prophecies so much as historical accounts, and therefore of a late date. In assigning the work to the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, Porphyry held that the author of Daniel had lied so as to revive the hopes of contemporary Jews in the midst of their hardships. As a result the Book of Daniel contained a number of historical errors because of its distance in time from the original events.

This view has been reflected in one way or another ever since in rationalistic attacks upon Daniel. The shallowness of its basic philosophical pre-supposition is readily apparent from even a casual perusal of OT prophetic lit., where the speakers not only dealt with contemporary events but also pronounced upon happenings in the future, some of which had no particular relationship to the circumstances of their own time. The reason for this, stated simply, is that the Heb. prophets would have had little sympathy for the modern antithesis between forthtelling and foretelling, if only because of the fact that, for them, the future was inherent in the present in a special revelational manner. Rather more serious attention should be paid to the suggestion of Porphyry that the author of Daniel committed specific historical errors. This allegation is curious, since modern critics have regarded him as an extremely talented Jew, and who therefore could be expected to write authoritatively. Furthermore, no intelligent 2nd cent. b.c. Jew could possibly have committed the kind of mistakes alleged if he had ever read the Book of Ezra, which covered the history of the early Pers. period. Nor would the Jews of the Maccabean age have recognized the book as canonical had it actually contained the kind of errors proposed, since they had access to the writings of such ancient historians as Herodotus, Ctesias, Berossus and Menander, who preserved correct chronological and historical traditions. By contrast however, 2nd cent. b.c. Palestinians rejected such works as 1 Maccabees as being unworthy of inclusion in the Heb. canon, which by this time had become closed by common consent.

Characteristic of the sort of historical error popularly supposed to be present in Daniel is the assertion that the reference in Daniel 1:1 can be regarded only as anachronistic, since it implies that Jerusalem had been captured in the third year of Jehoiakim (605 b.c.), and this conflicts with Jeremiah 25:1, 9; 46:2, which spoke in the following year as though Jerusalem had yet to fall to the Chaldean armies. This apparent discrepancy of one year rests on a misunderstanding of chronological reckoning in antiquity. The Babylonian scribes used an accession-year system of computation, reckoning the year in which the king ascended the throne as the “year of the accession to the kingdom,” and this was followed by the first, second and subsequent years of rule. The Palestinian scribes, by contrast, tended to follow the non-accession patterns of reckoning found in Egypt, in which the year when royal rule began was regarded as the first of the reign. Quite obviously therefore, Jeremiah reckoned according to the current Palestinian pattern, while Daniel followed the one used in Babylonia. As a result, the fourth year of Jeremiah 25:1 is actually identical with the third year of Daniel 1:1. Both writers were clearly using systems of reckoning with which they were familiar, and which fully accorded with their different cultural backgrounds. It should also be noted that the reference in Daniel does not affirm that Jerusalem was destroyed in 605 b.c., but states only that Nebuchadnezzar took with him certain hostages to Babylonia as a token of good faith on the part of Jehoiakim.

Another supposed historical error on the part of the author has been seen in his use of the term “Chaldean” in an ethnic sense and in a restricted context to indicate a group of “wise men,” a usage which does not occur elsewhere in the OT and which pointed allegedly to a late date of composition. This difficulty can be dismissed immediately when it is realized that the 5th cent. b.c. historian Herodotus spoke consistently of the Chaldeans in his Persian Wars, acknowledged their priestly office, and stated that some of their cultic procedures went back at least to the time of Cyrus. Furthermore, Assyrian annals employed the term “Chaldean” (kaldu) in an ethnic sense and under Nabopolassar of Babylon (626-605 b.c.), a native Chaldean, the designation became extremely reputable, reflecting OT usage.

Further critical objections to the historicity of Daniel have been raised in connection with the relationship between Belshazzar and Nabonidus. In the Book of Daniel the former was king of Babylon, whereas in contemporary cuneiform writings it was Nabonidus who occupied the Babylonian throne (c. 555-539 b.c.). Obviously a contemporary writer would not have made so elementary a mistake, it was argued, and thus the book must be a late product. Babylonian historical sources show that Nabonidus came to power at a time of considerable unrest in the Chaldean period. Amel-Marduk (562-560 b.c.), the successor of Nebuchadnezzar, was assassinated by Neriglissar (560-556 b.c.), who then set out with an army to Cilicia in an attempt to stem the rising power of the Lydians. His son, Labashi-Marduk, reigned for less than a year before being overthrown by Nabonidus, who in turn marched to Cilicia and appears to have achieved some sort of political settlement between Lydia and the Medes. The latter then began to threaten Babylonia, and when its inhabitants refused to accept certain reforms proposed by Nabonidus he promptly made his son Belshazzar co-regent and left for Syria. He campaigned there and in N Arabia for a decade while the feud between himself and the Babylonian priesthood gradually simmered down. About 544 b.c. political conditions in Babylonia made his return possible, but by then the country was weak and hopelessly divided politically. Against this historical background it was perfectly correct for the author of Daniel to speak of Belshazzar as “king,” since he was in fact coregent, and to observe that Daniel ruled “as one of three” (Dan 5:29), the absent partner being Nabonidus. The reference in Daniel 5:18 to Belshazzar as a son of Nebuchadnezzar is also correct according to Sem. usage, since “son” often was used as the equivalent of “descendant.” Nitocris, the mother of Belshazzar, was apparently the daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, which again supports the tradition contained in Daniel. As far as incidental historical accuracy is concerned, the author was sufficiently well informed about 6th cent. b.c. life in Babylonia to represent Nebuchadnezzar as being able to formulate and change Babylonian law with absolute sovereignty (2:12, 13, 46), while showing that Darius the Mede was powerless to alter the rigid laws of the Medes and Persians (6:8, 9). Again he was quite correct in recording the change from punishment by fire in the time of the Babylonians (ch. 3) to punishment by being thrown into a lion’s den under the Persians (ch. 6), since fire was sacred to the Zoroastrians. Similarly, the author of the work knew precisely why the image of Nebuchadnezzar had been set up in the plain of Dura. Archeological excavations have shown that this enterprising king undertook considerable restoration of ancient buildings during his reign, one of the more notable instances being at Ur. Nebuchadnezzar also instigated a thoroughgoing reformation of religious calendars and cultic practices, and from the evidence presented by the excavation of the temple at Ur it appears that the general tendency of his cultic reforms was in the direction of greater public participation in what hitherto had been rather esoteric sacrificial and other rites. The erecting of a large image in the plain of Dura served to establish general congregational worship by the public, with the king rather than the priesthood as the representative of the god. Substituting this form of congregational worship, Nebuchadnezzar displaced the secret rituals performed by the priests and brought religion within the reach of the lowliest citizen in the empire. All of the foregoing is of immediate significance for the 6th cent. b.c., but is of no relevance whatever for the Maccabean period. Critics of the traditional date and composition of Daniel have long employed the circumstances surrounding the insanity of Nebuchadnezzar as an indication of the unhistorical nature of the book, since such a mental affliction was supposedly not recorded in non-Biblical sources. The latter is by no means true, however, for three centuries after the time of Nebuchadnezzar a Babylonian priest named Berossus preserved a tradition that Nebuchadnezzar became ill suddenly toward the end of his reign, which was mentioned by Josephus as well as by the 2nd cent. b.c. writer Abydenus. The garbled nature of Berossus’ report lends strength to the view that the illness was a form of madness. In Mesopotamia this kind of affliction was dreaded above all others because it was thought to be the direct result of demon possession. Consequently, madmen were immediately deprived of normal social contacts lest they should cause others to be possessed, and the affliction in its various forms was treated with superstitious dread. For such an ailment to overtake a Babylonian king was unthinkable, but even if it occurred it could never have been recorded as such in the annals. More than three centuries later only the most discreet of references to this calamity was deemed advisable and this attitude contrasts markedly with the concise, objective Heb. report in ch. 4. That this latter described accurately a genuine though rare psychotic condition is evident from the way in which the latter is still seen occasionally today, and can be recognized clearly even from the Daniel narrative alone. The condition is a rare form of monomania known as boanthropy, in which the sufferer imagines himself to be an ox and behaves accordingly. The present writer has actually encountered one such case in a British mental institution, and despite the fact that the patient was receiving professional care he manifested all the physical attitudes described in Daniel, including the eating of grass and the drinking of rain water, these latter two items forming his entire diet. Some light may perhaps be thrown on the historical situation by a damaged tablet which Sir Henry Rawlinson recovered from the period of Nebuchadnezzar II. When tr. it read in part: “For four years...in all my dominions I did not build a high place of honor, the precious treasures of my kingdom I did not lay out. In the worship of Merodach...I did not sing his praises...nor did I clear out the canals.” If this is a genuine contemporary record it could well be a direct allusion to this embarrassing interlude in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.

From the fourth Qumran cave came a papyrus scrap containing the “prayer of Nabonidus,” and this discovery has prompted the suggestion that the disease described in Daniel 4 was wrongly attributed to Nebuchadnezzar evidently by another author writing long after the events described. The papyrus fragment in question preserved a prayer supposedly uttered by Nabonidus “the great king, (who) prayed when he was smitten with a serious inflammation by command of the most high God in the city of Teima.” This affliction evidently occurred during the years when Nabonidus was in voluntary exile from Babylonia, and was living in Arabia. The fragment recorded that Nabonidus confessed his sin when a Jewish priest from the exiles in Babylonia had been sent to him, and the priest then furnished a partial interpretation of the significance of the illness.

Those scholars who have studied this material have supposed that the author of the papyrus had preserved an “older” tradition, regarding Nabonidus rather than Nebuchadnezzar II as the victim of illness. The substitution of the latter in the Daniel account was thought to have occurred long after the original story had been brought to Pal. where recollections of Nabonidus soon faded. There are obvious difficulties in such a position, however. Precisely why the author of Daniel should have used the “prayer of Nabonidus” as the basis for the fourth ch. of his book, and then altered the names, the locale, and even the nature of the disease itself, is extremely difficult to explain. Furthermore, there was already a strong historical tradition associating Nabonidus with Teima and because of the brutality with which Nabonidus established himself at the site it is highly unlikely that either he or the events themselves would be forgotten, particularly among the Arab tribes of the area. Again, while Nabonidus was undoubtedly strong-willed and self-assertive as well as being a man of culture and antiquarian tastes, there is no tradition extant which at any time described him as a madman, cruel though he may have been occasionally. Furthermore, the “prayer of Nabonidus” contains pathological elements which are certainly unknown to modern medicine, whereas the account in Daniel describes a well-attested and readily-recognizable psychotic condition.

It seems clear that two very different traditions are involved. The Qumran scrap seems to preserve an account of some ailment, whether of a staphylococcal nature or not, which afflicted Nabonidus during his years at Teima, and because of certain unrealistic elements it can only be assigned to the realm of legend and folklore. By contrast, the account in Daniel is of an attestable clinical nature, and forms part of a larger tradition which associated madness with Nebuchadnezzar II. Compositions such as Susanna and Bel and The Dragon show that the Book of Daniel attracted a good deal of legendary material and it may well be that the Qumran fragment is another hitherto undiscovered element of this apocryphal corpus. However, in the view of the present writer, the “prayer of Nabonidus” more prob. constitutes a near contemporary of the apocryphal composition entitled The Prayer of Manasses, written in the cent. between 250 and 150 b.c. and closely related to it in both form and content. There is clearly no connection between the “prayer of Nabonidus” and the fourth ch. of Daniel, and it is therefore extremely difficult to see how the Qumran fragment can underlie the Daniel tradition in any sense. The fact that the “prayer of Nabonidus” was first discovered at Qumran might well indicate that it originated during the Maccabean period, and it may possibly have been composed by the Qumran secretaries themselves. There is no single element in it which requires a date of composition significantly earlier than the Maccabean period, and it could possibly have been written as late as 100 b.c.

One of the most tenacious arguments against the historicity and traditional authorship of Daniel has involved the identity of Darius the Mede. Since this man is not mentioned as such by name other than in the Book of Daniel, and the contemporary cuneiform inscrs. leave no room for a king of Babylon between Nabonidus-Belshazzar and the accession of Cyrus of Persia, his historicity has been denied on the ground that the events dealing with him in Daniel represent a mixture of confused traditions. However, because the narratives relating to Darius the Mede have all the appearances of a genuine historical record, it may be instructive to examine the evidence a little more closely. According to Daniel 5:30, 31, Darius the Mede received the government on the death of Belshazzar, being made ruler of the Chaldeans (Dan 9:1) at the age of sixty-two (5:31). He was accorded the title of “king” (6:6, 9, 25) and the years were reckoned in Babylonian fashion according to his reign (11:1). He appointed 120 subordinate governors of provincial districts under three presidents of whom Daniel was one (6:2). Darius was a contemporary of Cyrus the Persian, and during his rule Daniel came into even greater prominence than before.

Those who have taken the Daniel narrative as historical have made numerous attempts to identify Darius the Mede with persons mentioned in Babylonian cuneiform texts. Since he was a contemporary of Cyrus he clearly cannot be identified with Darius I, son of Hystaspes, who ruled over Babylonia and Persia from 521 to 486 b.c. Darius the Mede has also been identified with Cyrus the Great, who on his defeat of Astyages, king of Media, in 549 b.c. was accorded the title “king of the Medes” by Nabonidus of Babylon. Cyrus is known to have been in his early sixties when he conquered Babylon, and according to contemporary inscrs. he appointed many of his subordinates to positions of high office in the provincial government. Such a view would require that the phrase “and the reign of Cyrus” (6:28) be tr. “in the reign of Cyrus,” using two names for one person. This device is quite permissible linguistically, and would accord with the suggestion by D. J. Wiseman that Darius the Mede and Cyrus the Great should be regarded as alternative titles for the same individual, in exactly the same way as James VI of Scotland was known as James I of England. This theory is unfortunately weak in that nowhere was Cyrus named as “son of Ahasuerus” (cf. Dan 1:1), though it may be, of course, that this title was a term used of the royal succession. However, even though Cyrus was considered the king of Media, he was again never described in contemporary inscrs. as “of the seed of a Mede.”

Probably the best approach to the problem is to follow J. C. Whitcomb and identify Darius the Mede with Gubaru the governor of Babylon and the “Regions beyond the River” under Cyrus. The Nabonidus Chronicle mentioned two persons connected with the fall of Babylon, namely Ugbaru and Gubaru, and faulty tr. of the Chronicle since 1882 has tended to confuse their identities. It was on the basis of this misunderstanding that scholars such as H. H. Rowley assumed that they were actually one person, the Gobryas of Xenophon’s Cyropaedia, who died after the fall of Babylon in 539 b.c. The tr. of the Chronicle by Sidney Smith in 1924, however, distinguished between Ugbaru and Gubaru, and it is now apparent that the former, who was governor of Gutium and an ally of Cyrus, took a prominent part in the capture of Babylon and then died shortly afterward, presumably of wounds sustained in the battle. Whereupon the other victorious leader Gubaru, who with Ugbaru was apparently responsible for diverting the river Euphrates so that his soldiers could capture the city by infiltrating along the dried-up river bed, was appointed by Cyrus as the governor of Babylon. He appears to have held this position for fourteen years, and was mentioned in a number of cuneiform texts. One of the Nabonidus tablets discovered at Haran referred to the “king of the Medes” in the tenth year of the reign of Nabonidus (546 b.c.), and while this text does not throw any light on the identity of Darius the Mede it does at least show that the title was in existence after Cyrus had conquered Media, perhaps as the designation of a provincial governor. Certainly the evidence presented by the Nabonidus Chronicle would not permit Darius the Mede to be regarded as a “conflation of confused traditions” as Rowley maintained, but instead offers definite possibilities of the identification of Darius with an historical personage, namely Gubaru. Subsequent cuneiform discoveries may well clarify the situation completely.

At the end of the 19th cent. liberal scholars were fond of adducing as proof of a Maccabean date certain of the linguistic features found in Daniel. Thus, in 1891 S. R. Driver could pronounce quite confidently that the Gr. words demanded, the Heb. supported and the Aram. permitted a date of composition after the conquest of Pal. by Alexander the Great in 332 b.c. This opinion was widely quoted, and H. H. Rowley in particular tried to substantiate these conclusions in some of his publications. However, with more information concerning the history of the Aram. language now on hand, the opinions of Driver and others have undergone sobering modifications. Certain Aram. forms which originally were regarded as late in date have been discovered in the Ras Shamra texts of the Amarna Age, and include specific ones found in the Book of Daniel. As a spoken language Aram. was already current in the 3rd millennium b.c., and was the dialect favored by Laban (Gen 31:47) in the following millennium. Of the four groups of Aram. as established by linguistic research, Old Aram., the language of the N Syrian inscrs. from the 10th to the 8th centuries b.c., formed the basis for official Aram. This latter was already in use by government personnel during the Assyrian period (c. 1100-605 b.c.), and when the Persians gained control of the Near E it became the approved language of diplomatic and other communications. Even before the end of the Assyrian empire, Aram. “dockets” were already being attached to cuneiform tablets to indicate names and dates connected with the texts as well as a summary of their contents. During the Hel. period official Aram. continued in use on dockets as well as on coins, papyri, and a variety of inscrs. Recent studies have shown that the Aram. of Daniel was the kind which developed in government circles from the 7th cent. b.c. and subsequently became widespread in the Near E. The linguistic forms are also closely related to the language of the 5th cent. b.c. Elephantine papyri from Egypt, as well as to the appropriate sections of Ezra. The Heb. portions of Daniel have affinity with the linguistic forms of Ezekiel, Haggai, Ezra, and Chronicles, and not with the later linguistic characteristics of Ecclesiasticus as preserved in rabbinic quotations. Furthermore, it is now seen inadvisable to distinguish at all sharply between the eastern and western branches of the Aram. language, as older scholars were accustomed to do, and this weakens even further the argument for a later rather than an earlier date of composition. Scholars now realize that Pers. loan words in Daniel are consistent with an earlier date for the book instead of one in the Maccabean age. Thus the term “satrap,” once thought to be Gr., is now known to have been derived from the old Pers. Kshathrapan, which also occurred in the cuneiform texts as satarpanu, from which the Gr. form emerged. The Pers. terms in Daniel are actually old Pers. in nature, that is to say, words which occurred specifically within the history of the language up to 300 b.c. To this extent at the very least the Aram. of Daniel is decidedly pre-Hel. in nature, and reflects clearly the classical period when the language was the lingua franca of the Pers. empire. From the foregoing evidence it will be obvious that the kind of Aram. used in Daniel is a forceful argument for an earlier rather than a later date of composition, and strongly supports the traditional view of authorship by Daniel in 6th cent. b.c. Babylonia.

The fact that Gr. names were used for certain musical instruments in Daniel, tr. as “harp,” “sakbut,” and “psaltery,” was formerly much in vogue as an argument for a Maccabean date for the writing of the book. However, this view no longer constitutes a serious problem, since archeological discoveries have revealed something of the extent to which Gr. culture had infiltrated the Near E long before the Pers. period. It is now known that, despite their ostensible Gr. nature, the instruments in question are of undoubted Mesopotamian origin. Thus the “harp” was one of the numerous Asiatic forerunners of the Gr. kithara; the “sakbut” was most prob. similar to, or derived from, the sabitu or Akkad. seven-stringed lyre, while the “psaltery” was the old Pers. santir or dulcimer which was frequently portrayed on 1st millennium b.c. reliefs in Assyria.

In the light of the foregoing evidence it would appear that it is both unnecessary and undesirable for the authorship of the Book of Daniel to be assigned to any other place and time than the Babylonia of the 6th cent. b.c. This being the case, there can be little objection to the view that the book was written by Daniel, whether with or without scribal assistance, during or immediately after the period of time which the work purports to cover.

4. Date. Because questions of authorship and historicity are closely connected with the dating of the book the historical, archeological and linguistic evidence adduced in the previous section strongly confirms the traditional date assigned to Daniel. While the problems associated with Darius the Mede are not yet completely resolved, the situation is by no means as fictitious historically as Rowley and others have maintained. All the evidence to date indicates that Darius the Mede must once again be regarded as an historical personage and it is not too much to hope that future cuneiform discoveries will vindicate his historicity and reveal his identity.

As far as the languages of the Book of Daniel are concerned, the most recent studies place the Aram. firmly within the tradition of chancellery usage from the 7th cent. b.c. onward, and indicate a positive terminus ad quem in the pre-Hel. period at the absolute latest. The Heb. linguistic forms also accord with the traditions of the exilic and postexilic period as found in Ezekiel, Haggai and Ezra, and not with a considerably later stage in the language. From this it would appear that the book emerged from a period in the 6th to 5th centuries b.c. rather than from the Maccabean age. Some liberal scholars have adduced as evidence for a Maccabean dating the fact that the name of Daniel was omitted from the list of noteworthy Israelites (Ecclus 44:1ff.). Since the latter was in extant form by 180 b.c., it has been argued the omission implies that Ben Sira knew nothing either of Daniel or his book. Aside from any other considerations it is simply inconceivable that a person such as Daniel, whose prophecy had already attracted significant legendary accretions, would be entirely unknown to an erudite 2nd cent. b.c. Jew, particularly if, as liberal critics claimed, the sagas of Daniel were on the point of being written and accepted with great enthusiasm by oppressed Jews. When the list of notables as preserved by Ben Sira is examined even superficially, it will be observed that not merely was the name of Daniel omitted but also those of Job, all the Judges except Samuel, King Asa, Jehoshaphat, Mordecai and even Ezra himself. Quite clearly an appeal to ignorance has to be abandoned in favor of some other principle of selectivity whose nature is unknown. There are, however, references to Daniel and his book in 1 Maccabees 2:59ff., Baruch 1:15-3:3 and Sibylline Oracles III, 397ff., all of which are at least 2nd cent. b.c. compositions and attest to the familiarity of the Daniel tradition at that time.

Much of the most damaging evidence to the liberal assessment of the date of Daniel has been provided by the Qumran discoveries. It is now clear that the sect originated in the 2nd cent. b.c. and that all its Biblical MSS were copies, not originals. The nature of Jewish compositions aspiring to canonicity was that they were allowed to circulate for a period of time so that their general consonance with the law and the other canonical writings could become established. Once this had taken place the works were accorded a degree of popular canonicity as distinct from a conciliar pronouncement. Under normal circumstances a moderate interval of time was required for this process, though some prophecies were doubtless recognized early for what they were by those who heard them. Nevertheless, the written form generally only gained acceptance as the Word after some time had elapsed, but once this had happened it was transmitted with scrupulous care. Daniel was represented at Qumran by several MSS in good condition as well as by numerous fragments, thus showing the popularity of the work. Since all of these are copies, the autograph must clearly be earlier than the Maccabean period. Two fragments of Daniel recovered from 1Q proved to be related palaeographically to the large Isaiah scroll, and another was akin to the script of the Habakkuk pesher (see Dead Sea Scrolls). If this relationship is as genuine as palaeographers think, the liberal dating of Daniel will need radical upward adjustment, since the Book of Isaiah was certainly written several centuries before the earliest date to which the large Isaiah scroll (1QIsa) can be assigned on any grounds. A Maccabean dating for Daniel has now to be abandoned, if only because there could not possibly be a sufficient interval of time between the composition of Daniel and its appearance in the form of copies in the library of a Maccabean religious sect.

While at the time of writing the Daniel MSS from Qumran have yet to be published and evaluated it is clearly fatuous even in the light of current knowledge for scholars to abandon the Maccabean dating of certain Psalms which have long been regarded as demonstrably late, and yet adhere to it rigidly with regard to the Book of Daniel. For the sake of consistency alone, if the “late” Psalms are to be assigned now to the Pers. period, precisely the same should be done for the Book of Daniel. That scholarly prejudice is largely involved is seen in the fact that critics can argue from the reference to Jaddua (Jos. Antiq. XI, 7, 2) to an earlier rather than a later date for the list of high priests (Neh 12:10, 22), and yet completely ignore or dismiss the tradition preserved in the next section (Jos. Antiq. XI, 8, 5) which relates that after Jaddua had met Alexander the Great outside Jerusalem and had instructed him in the cultic procedures of Jewish sacrifice, the Book of Daniel was shown to the conqueror. If one tradition concerning Jaddua is acceptable, logical consistency would again demand that another concerning the same individual be given at least some consideration.

From the foregoing evidence it can be stated that a Maccabean date for Daniel is now absolutely precluded by the discoveries at Qumran. Whatever the critical objections to the traditional date, they will have to be modified radically in the light of this situation. Since the choice of date is between a Maccabean and a 6th cent. b.c. one, the demonstrated inadequacy of the former leaves the latter as the only acceptable alternative.

5. Place of origin. On the basis of a 6th cent. b.c. date of composition, the place of origin is clearly Babylonia. Indeed on any dating sequence there can be no real question as to the Babylonian background of the work. There is no single element which is consistent with a Palestinian compositional milieu, and the book consistently breathes the air of the Neo-Babylonian and Pers. periods. The city of Babylon itself seems the most probable place of compilation.

6. Destination. Liberal scholars who have suggested a Maccabean origin for the book have thought that it was intended as a “tract for the times” to encourage oppressed Palestinian Jews as they resisted the program of Hellenizing which Antiochus IV Epiphanes was imposing upon his realm. Since the work has been shown to belong properly to the 6th cent. b.c., the book can have been meant only for the exiles in Babylonia, evidently with the avowed purpose of showing that foreign captivity and a living faith in God were by no means as incompatible as some exiles imagined.

7. Occasion. The contents of Daniel arose out of the experiences of the seer in the Babylonian court, and comprise memoirs and visions. The various chs. represent the outstanding occurrences in the life of Daniel, which covers fully the period of the Exile in Babylonia. It is difficult to say whether the book was prompted by any specific occurrence, since it appears to be a straightforward record of notable events in the life of an outstanding servant of God. In the historical section the specific occasion was invariably one of pagan culture or superstition being confronted by the power of the Israelite God. In the visions the events of future times were the dominant concern, and whether these were occasioned by specific happenings in the life of Daniel or not is unknown.

8. Purpose. The overall aim of the book is to show the superiority of the Israelite God over the heathen idols of Mesopotamia. Daniel also makes it clear that, although the Babylonians had been the means of punishment for Israel, they also would pass from the historical scene. The visions go even further in predicting the time when the Messiah’s work would begin, showing that in the latter days God would establish a permanent kingdom. Despite the fact that the chosen people would not remain unscathed throughout their existence, their destiny was bound up with that of the Messiah. A living faith in the power of God would be more than a match for whatever difficulties might arise, as exemplified in the life of Daniel himself.

9. Canonicity. From its inception the work was apparently assigned to the third division of the Heb. canon, the Writings, presumably on the basis that Daniel could not be regarded as a prophet in the sense of Isaiah or Ezekiel, since he was not the mediator of revelation from God to a theocratic community. This conviction evidently underlay the pronouncement of the Talmud (Bab. Bath. 15a) which nevertheless testifies to the esteem in which Daniel was held. In the LXX version the book was placed among the prophetic writings following Ezekiel but preceding the Twelve, a position which was adopted by the English VSS.

10. Text. The MT is in good condition, and the LXX and other VSS do not suggest the presence of significant textual corruptions. The LXX has survived in one MS only, and indicates that the VS was characterized by expansions. It was displaced in the Early Church by the more literal VS of Theodotion, from which Patristic writers usually quoted. Legendary accretions such as the Song of the Three Young Men and Bel and The Dragon formed part of some VSS, including the LXX.

11. Content. The book can be analyzed as follows:

A. Daniel and his friends come to prominence in Babylon (1:1-21).

B. The vision of the image recalled and interpreted (2:1-49).

C. Image-worship in the plain of Dura and its consequences for Daniel and his friends (3:1-30).

D. A vision of the impending illness of Nebuchadnezzar (4:1-37).

E. The explanation of the cryptic text and the fall of Babylon (5:1-31).

F. Daniel in the den of lions (6:1-28).

G. A vision of four great beasts and their significance (7:1-28).

H. A vision of future kingdoms (8:1-27).

I. Confession, followed by a vision relating to the coming of the Messiah (9:1-27).

J. A divine message is given to Daniel which serves to introduce the prophecies of chs. 11 and 12 (10:1-21).

K. The wars of Syria and Egypt and the sealing of the prophecy (11:1-12:13).

12. Theology and interpretation. The theological standpoint of Daniel has much in common with that of Ezekiel. God is viewed as a transcendent Being who by nature is superior to all the gods of the heathen. Because God is all-powerful, events work out according to a predetermined divine purpose, and this is consistent with 8th cent. prophetic thought, which maintained that God was in firm control of the trend of events. In the same way Daniel thought of the Messianic kingdom as the conclusion of the age, and as a matter for divine rather than human decision. Although the coming kingdom was contemplated in largely material terms, the concepts of resurrection in ch. 12 are an advance on the eschatology of the preexilic prophets. The angelology of Daniel is similar to that of Ezekiel, and although somewhat vague on occasions it recognizes that angels possessed personalities and even names. However, the angelology is by no means as elaborate as that of later Jewish apocalyptic works such as 1 Enoch. The apocalyptic character of the visions should be distinguished carefully from oriental apocalypticism generally, since Daniel contains no dualism of the kind found in Zoroastrian religion and does not reflect an ethical passivity which would preclude Daniel from announcing divine judgment upon individuals or nations.

The apocalyptic sections of the book have been widely discussed, partly because of the interpretation to be assigned to the four kingdoms of ch. 2, where critics have divided Medo-Persia into two separate empires, making the kingdoms Babylonia, Media, Persia and Greece respectively. However, the history of the Median kingdom precludes such a division, so that the order of the empires would be Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. The identity of the fourth kingdom is important for the later visions of Daniel. It is quite different in nature from the “he-goat” (Dan 8:5), and thus cannot represent Greece, as liberal scholars have maintained. Again, the “little horn” (8:9), representing Antiochus IV Epiphanes, is not the same as the “little one” (7:8), and is also different from the successor to the ten kings (7:24). The “little horn” emerging from the fourth beast was represented in conflict with the saints of God before the establishing of the divine kingdom (7:21).

Attempting to interpret the prophecies, some conservative scholars have seen the predictions concerning the image (2:31-49), the four beasts (7:2-27), and the seventy weeks (9:24-27) culminating in the incarnation of Christ and the birth of the Christian Church. On this view the stone (2:34, 35) points to the coming of Christ, while the ten horns of the fourth beast (7:24), the little horn (7:8), and the concept of “time, two times, and half a time” (7:25) are interpreted symbolically. The Messianic work is accomplished during a period of seventy sevens (9:24), presumably dating from the decree of Cyrus in 538 b.c., including the work of Ezra, and culminating in the advent and ascension of Christ. The death of the Messiah causes Jewish sacrifices to cease, and the “one who makes desolate” (9:27) is Titus, who destroyed Jerusalem in a.d. 70. Other conservatives have related the apocalyptic passages to the Second Advent of Christ rather than the incarnation, and have seen in the image of Daniel two successive forms of the Satan-dominated kingdom of men represented by the empires of Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome, the latter being protracted in some form until the Second Coming of Christ. This ends with the rise of the ten kings (2:41-44; cf. Rev 17:12) who are destroyed by Christ at His Second Coming. The divine kingdom is then established (cf. Matt 6:10; Rev 20:1-6) which becomes a “great mountain,” filling the whole earth (Dan 2:35). Daniel 7:25 shows an advance in thought over Daniel 2, however, with the antichrist being introduced as the eleventh horn who persecutes the saints for “a time, and times and half a time” i.e. three and a half years (cf. Dan 7:6; 8:5 and Rev 12:14). One like a son of man (Dan 7:13) achieves the ultimate destruction of the antichrist, the four kingdoms, and the ten kings. The seventy sevens of years is reckoned on this view from the decree of Artaxerxes I in 444 b.c. to rebuild Jerusalem (Neh 2:1-8) and concludes with the founding of the millennial kingdom (Dan 9:24). A gap is held to separate the end of the sixty-ninth week from the beginning of the seventieth (9:62), since Christ set the abomination of desolation at the end of the present age (cf. 9:27, Matt 24:15). The millennial interpreters see in the seventieth week a seven-year period just prior to the Second Coming of Christ during which interval the antichrist arises and persecutes the saints of God. The transition from the purely historical situation represented by the Persian, Greek, Ptolemaic and Seleucid regimes, culminating in the persecutions of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (Dan 11:2-35a) is marked by the phrase “for it is yet for the time appointed” (11:35b), which introduces the specifically eschatological situation relating to the Second Coming of Christ. Some premillennial interpreters have seen the “king of the north” subduing the antichrist along with the “king of the south” before being destroyed himself (cf. 11:40-45; Ezek 39:4, 17), but ultimately the antichrist recovers and begins his era of world domination (Dan 11:44; cf. Rev 13:3; 17:8). The great tribulation of three and a half years (Dan 7:25) or 1260 days (Rev 12:6) ends with the bodily resurrection of those saints who have died in the tribulation (Dan 12:2, 3; cf. Rev 7:9-14). After a short interval in which the Temple is cleansed (Dan 12:11) the fullness of the millennial kingdom is ushered in (12:12).

Bibliography R. D. Wilson, Studies in the Book of Daniel, I (1917); II (1938); J. A. Montgomery, The Book of Daniel, ICC (1927); R. P. Dougherty, Nabonidus and Belshazzar (1929); H. H. Rowley, Darius the Mede and the Four World Empires in the Book of Daniel (1935); F. Rosenthal, Die Aramaistische Forschung (1939); E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel (1949); H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Daniel (1949); R. D. Culver, Daniel and the Latter Days (1954); J. C. Whitcomb, Darius the Mede (1959); S. B. Frost, IDB, I, 761-768; D. J. Wiseman, et al., Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel (1965); R. K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament (1969), 1105-1138.