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Friday, January 09, 2009

The date of Daniel

"Early Traces of the Book of Daniel" by Roger Beckwith.

6 comments:

  1. Probably the best argument for the early date of Daniel is that Daniel was aware that Belshazzar was in power in Babylon at the time it fell. None of the great historians of antiquity such as Xenophon and Herodotus were aware of him; they knew only of Nabonidus and preceding kings. However, the recently discovered Nabonidus Chronicle reports that Nabonidus was living in Arabia during the last few years of the Babylonian empire while his son Bel-shar-usus (Belshazzar), the crown prince, ruled in Babylon as de-facto king. Given that the great historians of antiquity are completely unaware of this king, it is evident that his memory faded into obscurity soon after his kingdom was destroyed. Hence it would be highly improbable that this information would have been known to an obscure Maccabean Jew who was about three hundred years even further removed from these events than the aforementioned historians.

    Oh, and Beckwith is wrong on one count: Tobit is even older than Daniel.

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  2. Tobit is older than Daniel if you accept the authenticity of Tobit. That reflects your commitment to the Catholic canon. Beckwith has argued at length for the Protestant canon.

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  3. Both Daniel and Tobit exhibit Aramaisms in the Greek text when subjected to linguistic analysis. Aramaic was the common tongue in the Levant during the period Protestants refer to as the "silent years" between Malachi and Matthew, which puts the composition of Daniel and Tobit somewhere between the time of Christ and the time they purport to document.

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  4. Well, I guess then I'll have to add "Rebuttal to Beckwith on the Canon" to my list of articles to write.

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  5. BARRY SAID:

    "Both Daniel and Tobit exhibit Aramaisms in the Greek text when subjected to linguistic analysis. Aramaic was the common tongue in the Levant during the period Protestants refer to as the "silent years" between Malachi and Matthew, which puts the composition of Daniel and Tobit somewhere between the time of Christ and the time they purport to document."

    Conservative scholars have addressed linguistic objections to the traditional date. Here's a novel idea: try raising an objection that hasn't been rebutted many times before.

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