Daniel - Introduction, Part 2

© 2008-2017 Tony Garland - contact@SpiritAndTruth.org

COURSE COMMENTARY

Background

• Daniel's Name
  Daniel's name means either "God is judge" or "God is my judge." Like Cyrus, who Isaiah prophesied was named by God (Isaiah 45:3), I believe Daniel's name was arranged by God in order to underscore a primary theme of the book: the judgment of the nations (both Jew and Gentile).

• Daniel's Early Years
  
  Daniel
  Image provided by Süddeutscher Glasmaler This image is in the public domain.
  We know little about the childhood of Daniel. He was probably born around 620 B.C. during the reign of Josiah (642-611), the last godly king of the southern kingdom of Judah. This would make Daniel a teenager, perhaps as young as age 14 or 15, when he was taken captive to Babylon.

• Daniel's Years of Service
  After being taken to Babylon, Daniel served under both Babylonian and Medo-Persian Empires, a period of roughly 70 years (606-537 B.C.). Due to his godly character and the plan and influence of God, Daniel obtained favor in high levels of government under two successive empires.

Daniel as Author

• Witness of the Book
  
  Daniel by Michelangelo
  Image provided by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). “The Prophet Daniel” in the Sistine Chapel. This image is in the public domain.
  Although the book begins by identifying Daniel in the third-person, ('he') (e.g., Dan. 1:6), from chapter 7 onward, Daniel is referred to in the first-person ('I') (Dan. 7:2,15,28; 8:1,15,27; 9:2,22; 10:1,2,7,11,12; 12:5). Many scholars believe the shift from first to third-person reflects the different emphasis of the portions of the book shifting from historical narrative to visionary revelation.

• Witness of Scripture
  A strong witness for the authorship of the book of Daniel--which should satisfy the needs of every believer--are the words of Jesus Who attributes the contents of the book to Daniel (Mat. 24:15; Mark 13:14). Jesus only quoted canonical writings. Besides this attribution by Jesus, Daniel is mentioned by Ezekiel (Eze. 14:14,20; 28:3) and almost certainly alluded to by the author of the Book of Hebrews (Heb. 11:33-34).

• Unity of the Book
  Those who deny Daniel as author usually do so by proposing that different sections of the book were written by a number of different authors, but the unity of the book is evidence against this. Since Daniel refers to himself in the first-person in the latter portions of the book, the unity of the book implies he wrote all of it.

• Early Interpretation
  If the book of Daniel were a pseudonymous work, then it is difficult to explain how became part of the Hebrew canon when other pseudonymous works were uniformly rejected. The earliest expositors of the book (e.g., Irenaeus, Hippolytus), accept the book as real history with no notion of any fraudulent origin.

• Unqualified Name
  The fact that references to Daniel both within the book and elsewhere in Scripture use the simple attribution of "Daniel" is itself strong evidence that the biblical Daniel wrote the book. For who else could be understood without further qualification by mention of the first name "Daniel"?

Critical Views of Authorship

• Someone Else Wrote Daniel?
  The critical argument: (1) the book of Daniel contains predictions of events of the Maccabean revolt which are too accurate to be true predictions, therefore (2) the book of Daniel must have been written after the events transpired--after the Maccabean revolt (c. 165 B.C.), and (3) the Daniel portrayed within the book as living during the Babylonian captivity died much earlier, so (4) some other author or authors must have written and assembled the book.

• Daniel Unknown to Secular History
  Like Belshazzar earlier, the lack of any mention in secular historical records to Daniel is taken as an argument from silence that he did not exist.

• Ezekiel Mentioned A Different Daniel?
  Critics assert that Ezekiel would not have placed Daniel in the same category as the biblical heavyweights Noah and Job in Ezekiel 14:12-14. But Ezekiel was taken captive to Babylon about 8 or 9 years after Daniel and would have heard of his reputation.

• A Pagan Dan'el?
  
  Epic of Aqhat
  Copyright © 2007 by Rama. Fouilles C. Schaeffer, 1931. “Tablet: the legend of Danel and his son Aqhat, or the Epic of Aqhat. Alphabitic cuneiform writing, Ugarit language ca. 14th - 13th century BCE, Ras Shamra (house of the Great Priest), Terra cotta. Louvre Museum, Department of Oriental Antiquities, Sully, lower ground floor, room B, Display 12” This image is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 France license.
  If the critics don't believe that the biblical Daniel is referred to by Ezekiel, who do they believe was in view? Most believe Ezekiel referred to a character named Dan'el mentioned in the Ugaritic Epic. But Dan'el of the epic was a polytheistic idol-worshipper.

• An Unknown Pious Seer?
  The most popular suggestion for an individual author besides Dan'el of the Ugaritic Epic is some pious visionary of the Maccabean age. Curiously, nobody knows who this individual would be! But this individual has more strikes against him than Daniel. Not only is he unknown to secular history, he is also unknown by the apocrypha, early historians, and the early church.

• Multiple Authors?
  Rejecting the considerable evidence for the unity of the book, some critics propose that the book of Daniel was compiled and revised by multiple authors. The lack of agreement concerning the number of proposed authors is evidence of the subjectivity of attempting to infer authorship based on grammatical and textual subtleties. Views range from as few as two individuals to as many as ten!