THE following is a brief summary of Professor
Drivers indictment of the Book of Daniel. He enumerates under nine
heads "facts of a historical nature" which point to an author later than Daniel
(pp. xlvii1v1). These are :
- The position of the Book in
the Jewish Canon.
(As to this see pp. 5761, and 103108, ante.)
- The omission of his name from Ecclesiasticus.
(See pp. 57, 98 n.,
ante.)
- That the Book of Kings is silent as to the siege mentioned in
Dan. i. 1. (See p.15 and App. I., ante.)
- The use of the term
"Chaldean." (See p. 45 a., ante.)
- That Beishazzar is spoken of as king,
and as son of Nebuchadnezzar. (See p. 23 if., ante.)
- The mention of
Darius the Mede as King of Babylon. (See p. 31ff. and i65, ante.)
- The
mention of "the books" in Dan. ix. 2.
The word sepher means simply a
scrolL It often denotes a book; often a letter (as, e.g., Jer. xxix. i, or Isa.
xxxvii. 14.) Then again Jer. xxxvi. I, 2 records that Jeremiahs
prophecies up to that time were recorded in a "book." And ten years later a
further "book" of them was sent to Babylon (Jer. ii. 6o, 61). Or if any one
insists that "the books" must here mean a recognised canon, where is the
difficulty? The statement that no such "collection" existed in B.C. 536 is one
of those wanton assertions that abound in this controversy. It may "safely be
affirmed" with certainty that the scrolls of the Law were kept together. And
there was no man on earth more likely to possess them than the great
prophet-prince of the Captivity.
- "The incorrect explanation of the name Bel-shazzar in iv. 8." (As Dr. Driver goes on to describe this as "doubtful"
(p. liv.), I have not deemed it necessary to notice it.)
- The
"improbability" that strict Jews would have accepted a position among the "wise
men" (see p. 13, ante), and other like "improbabilities." (As Dr. Driver goes
on to admit that these do not possess weight, and "should be used with
reserve," I have not dwelt upon them.)
His second ground of attack is the
language of the book (lvi.-lxiii.). This has been fully discussed in these
pages (ch. iv.). And the third ground is "the theology of the book." After
deprecating the "exaggerations of the rationalists" under this head, he
proceeds:- "It is undeniable that the conception of the future Kingdom of God,
and the doctrines of angels, of the resurrection, and of a judgment on the
world, appear in Daniel in a more developed form than elsewhere in the Old
Testament." Far be it from me to deny it! It is largely on this very account
that the Christian values the book, remembering as he does, what Professor
Driver ignores, that its teaching in all these respects is definitely adopted
and developed in the New Testament. And if he finds that the later Jewish
apocalyptical literature resembles the book in some respects, he has no
difficulty in accounting for the resemblance. (See p. 57, ante.) I make the
critic a present of the entire argument under this head of "the theology of the
book," save on three points. And they are points which would never have been
urged by an English Christian writer save under the influence of German
infidelity.
- It is not true that the interest of the book culminates in
the history of Antiochus. As all Christian expositors with united voice
maintain, it culminates in the prophecy of Messiah's advent and death. And as
all students of prophecy recognise, it reaches on to the time of the treat
Antichrist of whom Antiochus was but a type.
- Daniel's passionately
earnest prayer recorded in ch. ix. is a complete answer to the statement that
he took "little interest in the welfare and prospects of his
contemporaries."
- We are told that "the minuteness of the predictions
embracing even special events in the distant future, is also out of harmony
with the analogy of prophecy." If this were sustained it would not affect the
book as a whole, but serve merely to accredit the suggestion urged by some
writers that part of chap. xi. is an interpolation. But in view of the facts
this allegation is as strange as that under (2) supra, and as many others in
Professor Driver's book. What about the minute predictions scattered through
the Old Testament respecting the Nativity and the Passion? And the last eight
chapters of Ezekiel contain a mass of predictions which still await fulfilment,
as minute as anything in Daniel
This is all that the Higher Criticism has to
urge against the Book of Daniel.
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