still it is difficult to imagine so great a popularity to be attained, in the circumstances, In twenty-four or twenty-five years. This view seems to us to contradict the evidence. Although Daniel is not referred to by Philo-a thing easily to be understood by the subjects treated and the methods employed by this writer-Daniel is largely quoted by Josephus, his later contemporary. Josephus has given a summary of the first six: chapters. He omits the seventh, possibly because it seemed In its line of thought a repetition of the second chapter. He gives a summary of the eighth chapter, transferring to it a picturesque feature from the beginning of the tenth, and some features to com- plete the prophecy about Epiphanes from the same chapter.1 We need not carry our account of the external references to Daniel further down. After this they become very frequent, especially when the argument from the" seventy weeks" became so relied on by Christian apologists in discussion with the Jews. Too much is made of the fact that the apostles did not use this argument. We have only a small number of the sermons of the apostles, and we do not know all the lines of argument adopted by them. Further, Daniel was not BO generally known, as it was not so regularly read in the synagogues as were some of the technical prophets and the Megilloth. The apostles could not thus appeal to the words of Daniel, as they could to prophecies familiar to the ear of the audience. Again, the argument from "the seventy weeks" implied an accurate knowledge of history and a power of calculating that could scarcely be expected from an ordinary audience. But again the implied argument proves too much, and therefore it proves nothing. If it were worth anything, it should prove that Daniel was: not known in the era of our Lord, but that may be easily demonstrated to be false. 2. Relation of Daniel to the canon, There are in regard to this, two questions-the relative date of Daniel in regard to the other books in the canon; and next, the age of the canon as a whole. (1) In regard to the first question, it has been assumed that the Book of Daniel has been put among the K'thubim, and not among the prophets, because its <late of com- position was later than that of any of the prophetic books. Further, that it was placed late among the K'thubim, because even among these late books it was the latest. '.l'hese statements, we need hardly say, apply only to the Massoretic arrangement. If the present Massoretic order were very ancient, this theory might be in a slight degree plausible, especially if there were no other orders to compete with it, and if the arrangements in the rest of the books of the canon followed an obviously chronological order. But not one of these suppositions is correct. So far as we are aware, there is at present no definite information as to when the present order was adopted in the Hebrew Bibles. Certainly it is not the order of the books in the passage usually referred to in the Talmudic treatise' Baba Bathra.' The order in it is' The Torah '-the books which belong to the prophets; Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and the Twelve-the books which belong to the K'thubim, Ruth, Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Lamentations, Daniel, and the roll of Esther, Ezra, and Chronicles. No one can fail to notice that here the arrangement of the greater prophets does not follow that of chronology, as Isaiah is put after Jeremiah and Ezekiel. 'fhe order in our present Septuagint is totally different from the arrangement in the Hebrew Bible. 1 H is difficult to understand how, in these circumstances, Professor Bevan can say that
Josephus's "acquaintance with the book was very superficial;" that he wrote "from vague recollections." All the more is this singular when we find Professor Bevan quoting Josephus's authority in favour of a certain reading. One feels inclined to retort that Professor Bevan's knowledge of Josephus waa "very superficial," and that he wrote "from vague reoollection1," P4NTE~. d ,a.xiv INTRODUOTION TO