Date of Composition. — The foregoing analysis helps materially in this decision. First, it shows Reusch, Welte, and other Romanists to be mistaken in claiming that l"-3* is the work of the historical Baruch in B.C. 583 : for (a) if so, there would be in the suppliants the sense of personal demerit ; and (6) their description of themselves as ' sons of those who sinned' would be quite out of place. Again, our analysis serves to render still more untenable the theory of Hitzig, Kneucker, Sehiirer, and some recent English writers, that our section was com- posed after the destruction of Jerus. by Titus. (1) We would ask, Could the Jews of A.D. 80 acquit themselves of personal blame? and could tliey speak of themselves as the unfortunate sons of the real culprits? (2) In 2" we have the same hope- less view of death as appears in Ps 6° and Is 38'*. As Reuss says, it indicates ' a time when the belief in a resurrection did not yet exist.' (3) There is in the section before us no clear indication that Jeras. and the temple were at the tirne in ruins. The only allusion to the state of Jerus. is in 2'-' 'Thou hast made (ISiiKas) thy house as it is this day,' but this may refer to a low condition or desecration of the temple. Had the city been in ruins, surely the poignant grief of the patriotic Jew could not have failed to express itself. (4) There is a very close resemblance between Bar l">-2" and Dn 9*"'* ; in fact there are only three important variations, and these all refer to the condition of Jerusalem. Daniel's prayer is stated to have been uttered in the first year of Darius, at the close of the Captivity, and three times the desolate state of Jerus. IS referred to, Dn 9"- "■ '*; but in Bar all are omitted. On any theory as to the relative priority of Dn and Bar this is significant ; but on Sehiirer s theory it amounts to this, that a man writing about A.D. 80, while slavishly imitating Dn 9, abruptly and intentionally selects for omission those parts only which refer to the desolate sanctuary. This we consider highly improbable.
We are thus drawn to the theory of Ewald, who assigns our section to the times after the conquest of Jems, by Ptolemy I. in B.C. 320 {Die Jungsten Propheten, 269), or of Reuss, who assigns it to the times of the first Ptolemies. Its origin may be even earlier. At all events there does not seem valid reason, with Kritzsehe, to assign our section to the Maccab. period (Hb. z. d. Apocr. i. 173) on the ground of its dependence on Dn 9. The dependence is by no means self-evident. But if it were so, and if the Book of Dn in its present form be late, this does not preclude the use of pre- existent materials ; and it is surely conceivable that in Dn 9 we have an ancient form of prayer traditionally associated with the name of Daniel, as the confession and prayer before us were associated with the name of Baruch. Bissell (Lange's Apocr. 417) and GiHord (Speaker's Apocr. 250) are also in favour of the early authorship of our section. Original Langxuige. — It is highly probable that
l'-3' was first composed in Heb. ; though the Gr text and VSS that have been tr. from the Gr. are all that survive. The very fact that the two prayers were designed for religious assemblies — the former one for the temple — is strong presump- tive proof of Heb. authorship (so Bissell, 417). In the margin of the Milan MS of the Syr. Hexap. text these words occur on 1" and 2' : ' This is not in the Heb.' (Zbckler blunders twice in stating this.) But, apart from this, the linguistic evidence alone seems conclusive.
1. There are cases in which an awkward word in the Gr. can be shown to possess one of two mean- ings of a Heb. word, and the other meaning is that required by the context —
1=" ^p-ydfeirflai, to work, for serve. So njji
2* dliarov, wilderness, „ astonishment. „ ■i^P
2^ ifffpuTTos, man, „ each. „ p'x
2^ liudev, outside, „ streets. „ nisin
2** fi6iL§Ti(jii, buzzing, „ crowd. „ |icri
1* 5e(r/iu5n)s, prisoner, ,, locksmith. ,, iJt?
2. Cases in which the unsuitable word suggests its own corrective, if we tr. it into Heb. and sub- stitute diflerent vowels or change one consonant.
jw fuivva, wrong translit. of nijip.
2"" dTroo-ToX?) = 157 ^O'' "^^ plague.
3^ T(6vi)Kbrruv = 'iiD „ "D? men.
3* 6<p\riaii'— nuPD „ .ide'd astonishment.
3. Cases of slavish imitation of Heb. idiom in violation of the Greek. The word Kal occurs 120 times ; four times in the sense of ' but,' like Heb. i, 234.27.3(1 33_ xhen we have oS . . . iKei^oif iy.v, and o5 . . . iir' ai'T(} = yhii iwN. But, to appreciate the full force of the evidence^ one has simply to attempt to retranslate the section. The idioms are Hebraistic everywhere. The Heb. seems, as Fritzsche says, to gleam through so plainly that one cannot doubt that the Gr. is a tr. Kneucker has, on the whole, given an admirable rendering of our section into the original Hebrew.