5. The Homiletical Purpose of the Bk. of Dn is most agreeable to the Antiochian period. The narratives in chs. 1. 3. 6 are exhortations to keep the Jewish law and to remain faithful to the worship of J". While such teaching might be appropriate at all times, it was esp. so then in its peculiar form. The question of eating meat was at that time a test of faith. Then iiious Jews 'chose to die that they might not be defiled with food, and that they might not profane the covenant' (1 Mac jiBf.) ■fijg lessons of the ' fiery furnace ' and the 'lions' den,' chs. 3and6, never could have been more fitly presented than when ' came there forth out
• Delitzsch, art. • Daniel." PliBnS^S), Driver, LOT pp. 469-476 (1891); Konig, Einleit. { 80 (1S93) ; Bevan, Cam. pp. 26-42 (1892); Rehmiann, Komm. pp. i-x(lS94).
t Additional evidence in language appears alao in the proper names Nebvichadnezzar 1', Belteahazzar 17, and Abed-Nepo 17, lince their spelling and formation show a laclE of acquaintance vith the language and goda of Babylon during the Exile {coT a. I2*t. ; Sayoe, HCM p. 532)
of Isr. transgressors of the law, and persuaded many, saying. Let us go and make a covenant with the nations that are round about us' (1 Mac 1"), and when Antiochus commanded the worship of foreign deities on pain of death (1 Mac 1*''*'). The stories of the humbling of Nehuch. (ch- 4) and the fall of Belshazzar (ch. 5) would also be fraught «ith par- ticular consolation when Israel was oppressed by the heathen. The visions (chs. 7-12), whatever view is taken of their date, are universally acknowledged to have been primarily designed for consolation during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes.
6. The External History of the Bk. of Dn likewise favours its composition at the time of Antiochus. There is no evidence in any OT or Apocr. writing of its earlier existence. The testimony of Josephus, written near the close of the 1st cent. A.D., that the book was sho^vn to Alexander the Great {Ant. XI. viii. 5), prob. represents only a Jewish legend, and historically is of no decisive value. The earliest possible reference is in the Sibylline Verses, iii. 388 tj'. (about B.C. 140), where there may be an allusion to Antiochus Epiphanes and the ten horna (Dn 7'- "• " ; Schurer, HJP div. u. vol. iii. p. 280). The next reference is 1 Mac 2"'- where Matthias is reported in his dying exhortation to have said • that Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael believed and were saved out of the flame. Daniel for hia innocency was delivered from the mouth of lions.' While this might simply indicate a knowledge of these stories, it is probable that the author of 1 Mac (about B.C. 100), who evidently composed the speech of Matthias, was acquainted with our book. From this period on there are abundant evidences of its bein" well known. Its influence is very appreciable in NT, esp. in Rev, but it is only once directly mentioned (Mt 24").*
The place of the Bk. of Dn among the Hagio- grapha favours also its late composition. If it had been written during the ExUe, notwithstanding its apocalyptic character, it naturally would have been placed among the Prophets.
The Conclusion , then, in favour of the Maccabaean date, in view of this accumulation of concurrent facts, seems abundantly warranted. The exact date of composition is usually placed within the year B.C. 165. The ' aliomination of desolation,' 168, is clearly before the writer, and also the Maccaba?an uprising in 167, but not the n- iledica- tion of the temple in Dec. 165, and the ucath of Antiochus in 163.
The great difficulty, of course, in assigning the Bk. of Dn to the late date is the fact that chs. 7-12 are represented as revelations of the future given to Daniel during the Exile. But this ditticulty vanishes the moment one considers how prevailing in OT and among Jewish writers was the custom of representing present messages as given in the past through ancient worthies. Thus the law of Deut. is given as though spoken by Moses in the land of Moab, and the legislation of P as though revealed to Moses in the wilderness. The Bk. of Eccles. is written as the experience of Solomon. While in 2 Es, Bar, the Bk. of Enoch, and the Jewish Apocalypses generally, this method of com- position is abundantly illustrated, and was evi- dently a favourite one with the devout and pious of the centuries immediately preceding and fol- lowing Christ.
Assigning the entire book to the Maccabopan period,destroys, it is true, the hist, reliability of chs. 1-6. These chapters must be regarded as a species
• This passage, lilte other similar NT ones, reflect* the Jewish opinion of the Ist cent. A.D., but has no further weight in deciding the question of authorship. Christ or the writer of the Gospel naturally expressed hinieelf according to this opinion, for we have no reason to believe that the Divine Spirit ever led either of them to instruct or correct their contemporariea ol questions of literary and historical criticism.
DANIEL, THE BOOK OF
DANIEL, THE BOOK OF
555
of the later Jewish Hajjgada, or method of incul- cating moral and spiritual lessons by tales of the imagination. Here, again, we meet with striking parallels in the OT Ilk. of Jonah and in the Apocr. stories of Tobit and J udith. A quasi defence oi chs. 1-6 is frenuently made on the ground that the writer useu authentic written material of the Exile which he revised. This, of course, is possible, but it is a mere hypothesis, and it is more probable that his material was only traditions or tales.*