Question: [Daniel contains key messianic prophecies as well as referring to the last days and ...

Question [the question was too long to include, but is apparent from the answer. Daniel contains key messianic prophecies as well as referring to the last days and Antichrist. For that reason it has been under attack by skeptics for centuries. Therefore we thought it worthwhile to include this response to the second letter from the writer who attacked the authenticity of Daniel in last month’s Q&A.]

Response: I will overlook your demeaning language and many accusatory and derisive expressions such as “unaware of scholarship...ignore the importance of accuracy in detail in order to make points... use material out of context for effect...conveniently ignored...wishful thinking...ulterior motive...propensity for making unsubstantiated presumptions...cynical...irrelevant and nonsensical...pontificate...reflex bigotry...absurd claim...figment of your imagination...fondness for the dogmatic...satisfied that you have God and His messages all figured out...,” etc. In spite of the profusion of such insulting ad hominem attacks upon my integrity, I will still assume that you write in good faith, and will make one more attempt to reply reasonably.

No, I did not ask you for “scholarship that supports the dating of Daniel to the time of Antiochus Epiphanes.” I asked for proof. Instead, you quoted the opinions of some scholars but neither they nor you offer proof to support these beliefs. In fact, all the proof is to the contrary. I am aware of the skeptical dating theories of Driver and the scholars you quote. Daniel’s prophecies (re the breakup of Alexander’s empire under four generals, the rise of Antiochus Epiphanes and the pollution of the temple) had to be placed after the events to avoid the fact of prophecy from God which skeptics reject. Are you trying to justify a late date for the same reason? This once popular theory has withered under more recent investigation and discoveries.

I could quote many scholars of equal or better credentials who offer evidence that Daniel was written (as it claims) in the sixth century B.C. The Aramaist Franz Rosenthal calls for such a date. British Egyptologist Kenneth Kitchen showed that 90 percent of the Aramaic in Daniel dates to the fifth century B.C. or earlier and that the Persian and Greek “loan words” could likewise precede the fifth century B.C. Some syntactical forms in Daniel didn’t survive beyond the fifth century, making a later date impossible. University of Liverpool Semiticist Allan Millard agrees. Leading Aramaist E. Y. Kutscher has demonstrated that Daniel’s Aramaic word order is Babylonian, not Palestinian, rendering impossible the date and location you assert. Other experts contradict your scholars. The discovery of the Qumran fragments of Daniel has strengthened the evidence for the early date as Old Testament scholars such as Gerhard Hasel affirm.

The internal evidence in Daniel and elsewhere in the Bible is overwhelming for the earlier date. In Ezekiel:14:14Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD.
See All...,20, God speaking through His prophet puts Daniel on a par with Job and Noah and in 28:3 extols his wisdom. Rather odd if Daniel was not Ezekiel’s contemporary but the pseudonym for some unknown character who would pull off a blatant fraud some four centuries later by writing a mere fiction in order to give comfort to the Jews suffering under Antiochus! Your reference to Vietnam and implication that I have not been in a war (I was in WW II) are irrelevant.

Your “evidence” for this late date is that the Jews were oppressed and needed com- fort. Wouldn’t they find better comfort in something written by the real Daniel? The book claims to have been written by a man carried to Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar and gives details of his life as a consultant to kings through the reigns of Darius and Cyrus. If not true, it’s a total fraud so why waste time studying it?

You accuse me of having “no respect for such scholarship.” Should I respect “scholarship” that is based upon unsubstantiated theories and makes a mockery of common sense by turning Daniel into a work of fiction by a pseudo-author four centuries after the fact? You object to my saying that the book of Daniel “must have suddenly appeared” at the late date you favor. You say its “final composition [was] around 168 B.C.” Evidence, please! If that were the case, then it must have appeared at that time. It could hardly have appeared before it was written. “Composition” in 168 B.C. is amazing considering that Daniel had been in the Greek Septuagint since its translation about 80 years earlier from an even earlier Hebrew copy. Yes, it seems to have been in the Hagiographa, but that had nothing to do with placing the date in which it was written but was because the rabbis considered it to be a “dangerous” book that zealots used to justify uprisings as supposedly fulfilling Daniel’s prophecies. Certainly the Qumran community regarded the book of Daniel as prophetic. Jesus called Daniel a prophet (I’ll take His Word over scholarly opinions) and spoke of a yet future fulfillment beyond that by Antiochus Epiphanes for the abomination foretold by Daniel: “When ye...see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place...” (Mt 24:15).

Yes, it was Cyrus who sent the Jews back saying that God “hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem.” “House” meant temple, not the city, which was not restored at that time. That is why Nehemiah wept—because Jerusalem remained in ruins: “the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire” (Neh:1:3And they said unto me, The remnant that are left of the captivity there in the province are in great affliction and reproach: the wall of Jerusalem also is broken down, and the gates thereof are burned with fire.
See All...). This destruction had remained from the days of Nebuchadnezzar. There is no question that Jerusalem was restored under Nehemiah. You say the king simply gave Nehemiah “his permission.” In fact, he sent “captains of the army and horsemen” to accompany Nehemiah to whom he had given “letters...to the governors beyond the river” and to “the keeper of the king’s forest” to supply timbers, etc. I hardly think those receiving these letters would consider them to be mere “permission” from the king, but orders to be obeyed. You say I must identify this as the command to rebuild Jerusalem referred to in Daniel:9:25Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times.
See All... in order to make my dates work out. Well, this was the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and the dates do work out! I’m just accepting the simple facts. Why are you so reluctant to do so?

You say the people suffering under Antiochus would not have wondered when the book was written, but would have been happy just to be comforted. What “comfort” was there in the vision of the image, in the mysterious four beasts and in Gabriel’s prophecy that the Messiah would be “cut off” and the temple and city destroyed again? You say that a book in the first person telling events that happened to the writer four centuries earlier is not a claim that the book was written then?! I’m amazed! It was not a matter of “determining if Daniel was a fraud,” it would have been obvious. As for risking their lives to preserve the book, they would do so because it was God’s Word, not for the selfish reason that it brought comfort. Comfort from fiction? If it isn’t God’s Word, forget it!