Daniel and the Critics by T. C. O'Donnell

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · May 24, 1906

Daniel and the Critics

By T. C. O'Donnell

WHEN the higher criticism arose in Germany about a century ago, it asserted the utmost professions of loyalty to Christianity and of desire to strengthen the faith of the people in the Bible. Whatever its real purposes may have been at the time, it is certain that in its later and more radical developments it has revealed a deep-seated antagonism that seems inspired by the malice of the evil one himself. Proof of this is seen in the fact that those parts of God's Word most violently attacked are those which most abundantly testify to the stability and truthfulness of the Christian religion.

From the first, the book of Daniel has been the chief storm-center. The battle began with two lines of attack, historical and literary criticism. Both schools of critics placed the date of its composition in the period of the Maccabees, 164 to about 100 B. C. Some of the reasons advanced are most childish and fanciful, and cause us to wonder that their authors have held so long a sway over the minds of Bible students. For instance, certain technical words in Daniel 2, ten in number and mostly of Greek form, were declared to prove its authorship to lie in the period when Greek influence was strongest in Judea, that is, in the Maccabean age. These words have been abandoned one by one until now only two are contested, and these are easily explained by the cosmopolitan nature of the Babylonish court, proved by new tablets and inscriptions.

Then, too, the general structure of the language, with its variations in style, was urged as being peculiar to the second and third centuries B. C., and as proving the writer of Daniel to have been little more than a mere compiler of legend and historical fact. Now, however, critics, some even among higher critics and expert in Semitic languages. The professor is discussing the vast difference between the literary style of the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, written about 200 B. C., and the Hebrew literature of two and three hundred years previous, to which period he assigns the canonical book of Ecclesiastes:—

“If by 200 B. C. the whole Rabbinic farrago, with its terms and phrases and idioms and particles, was developed, . . . then between Ben Sira [the author of Ecclesiasticus] and the books of the Old Testament there must lie centuries, nay, there must lie, in most cases, the deep waters of the captivity, the grave of the old Hebrew and the old Israel, and the womb of the new Hebrew and the new Israel. If Hebrew, like any other language, has a history, then Isaiah . . . must be separated from Ecclesiastes by a gulf; but a yet greater gulf must yawn between Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus, for in the interval a whole dictionary has been invented of philosophical terms such as we traced above, of logical phrases, . . . legal expressions, . . . nor have the structure and grammar of the language experienced less serious alterations. . . . Hypotheses which place any portion of the classical or old Hebrew scriptures between the middle Hebrew of Nehemiah and the new Hebrew of Ben Sira will surely require some reconsideration, or at least have to be harmonized in some way with the history of the language before they can be unconditionally accepted.”

Bishop Westcott has this to say on the same point:—

“The character of the Hebrew of Daniel bears the closest affinity to that of Ezekiel and Habakkuk, or in other words, to those prophets who lived nearest to the assumed age of Daniel; but it is less marked by peculiar forms and corruptions than that of Ezekiel. The Aramaic, like that of Ezra, is also of an earlier form than exists in any other Chaldaic document. . . . In addition to these two great elements—Aramaic and Hebrew—the book of Daniel contains traces of other languages, which indicate the peculiar position of the writer. The use of Greek technical terms marks a period when commerce had already united Persia and Greece; and the occurrence of peculiar words which admit of an explanation by reference to Aryan, and not to Semitic, roots is almost inexplicable on the supposition that the prophecies are a Palestinian forgery of the Maccabean age.”

Daniel, then, which belongs to what Professor Margoliouth terms the classical or old Hebrew, can not by the structure of its composition be assigned to so late a period as that of Ben Sira's Ecclesiasticus.

While speaking of Ben Sira, we might notice another point raised against Daniel. That is the fact that Ecclesiasticus, in a somewhat extended list of old Jewish heroes, omits the mention of Daniel. But, as Bishop Westcott wrote,

“the omission is not more remarkable than that of Ezra and the twelve lesser prophets.” And to quote Professor Margoliouth again:— “Ben Sira, writing about 200 B. C., enumerates the famous men of the chosen line. In this list the name of Daniel does not appear. Had Daniel formed part of Ben Sira's canon, the latter must have known of the work; and had he known of it, he must have mentioned Daniel among the famous men of Israel. This is how the argument seems. But the last premise is false, since he does not mention Ezra, although he mentions Nehemiah, and the destruction of one link destroys the whole chain.”

The want of influence by the generally accepted Daniel on his contemporaries is also urged against the idea of a Daniel of so early a period as the captivity. Then when Ezekiel's two references to his piety are adduced, as evidence of his renown, we are curtly told that the idea of one so young as Daniel exercising so strong an influence over his nation is preposterous. But Daniel, according to the chronology worked out by many of the critics themselves, must have been at least forty years old, an age at which many of the world's greatest statesmen and warriors have arrived at the summit of their power. The work of our Saviour among men was finished before he reached twoscore years. Nor did his influence cease with his own generation. Many of the books of the Apocrypha bear marked evidence of an intimate acquaintance with Daniel on the part of their authors, and as Professor Bevan, also a prominent higher, and even a destructive, critic, says, “The more we realize how vast and how profound was its influence in post-Maccabean times, the more difficult it is to believe that the book existed previously for well-nigh four centuries without exercising any perceptible influence whatsoever.”

Exactness in the detail of Daniel's prophecies is urged against the integrity of the book. But exactness ought to be the first characteristic of a prophet, and it is to him as essentially a prophet that the Lord himself refers to Daniel in Matt. 24:15. So when we take away the prophetic character of Daniel's work, therefore, we make utterly meaningless and empty the Saviour's words.

If we turn from textual to historical criticism, we also find Daniel holding his own against destructive criticism. For years the greatest difficulty confronting the student of the Bible was the reconciliation of certain statements affecting the chronology of Daniel, Ezekiel, and Jeremiah that seemed contradictory. But closer study of the Bible itself, and the discovery of new inscriptions on the ancient monuments, afford constant affirmation of the truthfulness of the divine record. The camp of the critics is divided. Position after position is being surrendered to the friends of the book of Daniel.—T. C. O'Donnell, in The Present Truth.