06.13. "Daniel in the Critics Den"
Chapter 12 “Daniel in the Critics Den” The euphonious and somewhat facetious title at the head of this chapter is that of Sir Robert Anderson’s book on the authenticity of Daniel, and while I have not read it, yet if it approximates the standard of his other works, and I believe it does, every Christian not otherwise equipped for the defense of Daniel, might well become possessed of its contents. And every active Christian should be so equipped. There is no book of the Old Testament, hardly, excepting the Pentateuch, which the destructive critics so desire to abolish as Daniel. Grant the prophetic character of certain of its chapters, and there is enough of the supernatural in them to carry with it all the evidence desired for the divine revelation of the rest of the Bible. Sir Isaac Newton said, that, to reject Daniel’s prophecies was to reject the Christian religion, which is founded on his prophecy concerning Christ. Westcott qualifies this only a little when he says, that “no writing of the Old Testament had so great an influence in the development of Christianity as the book of Daniel.”
Daniel was of the tribe of Judah and probably of the royal blood (Daniel 1:3-6). He was carried captive into Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar sometime before Ezekiel, and in the reign of Jehoiakim, and was there trained and qualified for service at the court, attaining a wisdom far superior to the native men of science, and for this reason raised to a dignity of highest rank and power, which he retained, although not interruptedly, through the whole of the dynasties both of Babylon and Persia its successor. He prophesied throughout the captivity. His book was originally classed by the Jews among the “Holy Writings,” as we have seen, but we prefer to treat of it in the present connection for the reasons indicated in the case of certain other books mentioned.
I quote here a few isolated sentences from Nathaniel West’s preface to his valuable work entitled, Daniel’s Great Prophecy: The book of Daniel was written to prefigure, in outline, the course of history from the Babylonian exile to the Second Coming of Christ, and to reveal the age of millennial glory following that event. It consists of twelve chapters, of which five are historical, Daniel 1:1-21; Daniel 3:1-30; Daniel 4:1-37; Daniel 5:1-31; Daniel 6:1-28, and seven prophetical, Daniel 2:1-49; Daniel 7:1-28; Daniel 8:1-27; Daniel 9:1-27; Daniel 10:1-21; Daniel 11:1-45; Daniel 12:1-13, the predictions setting forth, by means of symbols and their interpretation, the political and religious struggles of the Jews with the empires of the world with greater clearness than in any other prophet. The labor done in the critical and exegetical study of the book has been very great, but it still remains an anvil on which all hammers are shattered.” The destructive critics have sought to show that certain of its predictions, those in Daniel 7:1-28 and Daniel 8:1-27, for example, having a primary fulfillment in the period of Antiochus Epiphanes, King of Syria, B.C. 170, were written after the event, and somewhere in the times of the Maccabees, 168-164, but the effort falls to the ground One may be quite ready to admit a Maccabean editorship as a similar editorship has been admitted in the case of other books, but this is far from saying that the book is of Maccabean authorship, or even any considerable part of it. But let us consider in detail some of the objections raised to its genuineness or at least to its genuineness as a whole. In the first place, the main interest of the predictive portion of the book beginning at Daniel 7:1-28, centers in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. B.C. 170, and it is suggested that the analogy of other prophetic writings would lead us to suppose that here was the writer’s historical standpoint. If he wrote as a captive in Babylon, as we know Daniel to have been, it is strange that he subordinates the needs and hopes of his own generation to those of posterity (S.C. Green). But to this it may be replied that such is not unusual with the prophets. Isaiah, indeed, does not detach himself from contemporaneous history in the way that Daniel does, but is he not almost equally minute in picturing the distant future? And what about Christ’s prophecy in Matthew 24:1-51? He detaches Himself as much as Daniel does and pictures the distant future with even greater fullness.
Another objection is that some of the historical references in the first six chapters are difficult to reconcile with the results of modern discoveries concerning the Persia or Babylon of Daniel’s day. But this is denied by scholars of equal eminence on the other side, like Lenormant, for example, who says that, “whoever is not the slave of preconceived opinions, denying the supernatural, must confess when comparing the chapters with the cuneiform monuments, that they are really ancient, and written at but a short distance from the events themselves.”
Linguistic difficulties are emphasized. There are Greek words in Daniel which suggest a later authorship, it is said. These words are the names of the musical instruments mentioned in the earlier chapters, but Professor Margoliouth, of Oxford, shows that there are Greek words in Isaiah 40:1-31, written a long while before Daniel, and that Greek words were borrowed by the Eastern nations as early as the 8th century B.C. There are some scholars who contend also, that it is quite as likely that Greece borrowed the names of these instruments from Babylon as that the latter borrowed them from Greece. A fourth criticism is that there is no mention made of Daniel in the roll of famous men in Ecclesiasticus, an Apocryphal book of about 200 B.C., but as Margoliouth points out in his Lines of Defence of the Biblical Revelation, neither does the writer of that book mention Ezra although he names Nehemiah. The destruction of one link, therefore, destroys the whole chain. Moreover the same writer brings forth other arguments too lengthy and intricate to quote here, which, if they are not in themselves sufficient to prove Daniel genuine do at least “wreck the theories that are at present dominant” (pp. 175 et seq.)
Space will not permit the prolongation of this subject, nor is it necessary for the class of readers to which these pages are addressed; but should one desire to consider it still further, he will find help in Kitto’s Biblical Cyclopedia, article, “Daniel,” in Pusey’s lectures on that book, and in the “Introductions” in the Speaker’s and Lange’s Commentaries upon it.
It should be remarked before closing, however, that other parts of the Bible abundantly corroborate the genuineness of Daniel. References to it are found in Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zechariah in the Old Testament, and in 1 Corinthians 6:2. 2 Thessalonians 2:4, and Hebrews 11:33-34 in the New Testament. Christ quotes the prophet by name in Matthew 24:15, and it is very evident to any reader of the two books that much of the symbolism of Revelation is clearly related to it. Speaking of Christ’s reference to it, Dr. West says, “I hold it to be unassailable that our Lord had the whole book of Daniel, and especially the vision of judgment (Daniel 7:1-28) directly in his mind when he uttered his great Olivet discourse concerning the end.”
“When, therefore, the opposers assail these predictions as apocryphal for the sake of maintaining their working rule, we can reply to them that they assail Christ himself and usurp his place as the interpreter of prophecy and the Heaven sent Teacher of the Church.”