LIBRARY or THK Th eological Seminar PRINCETON, N. J. y , C''''< BS/S55""'^"*^' j Shrff tf. H514 linol. No,_ 1 DISSEIITATIONS ON THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL AND Tl:E INTEGRITY OF ZECHARIAH. DISSERTATIONS ON THli GENUINENESS OF DANIEL AND THE INTEGRITY OF ZECHARIAH, , BY DU E. w/hENGSTENBERG, 'Professor ofriieology in the University of Berlin. TR AX SLATED BY THE KEV. B. P. PRATTEN. AND A DISSERTATION ON THE HISTORY AND PROPHECIES OF BALAAM, BY THE SAME AUTHOR. TRANSLATED BY J. E. RYLAND. / EDINBURGH : T. & T. CLARK, 38. GEORGE STREET : LONDON : SEELEY & CO. ; \VARn & CO. ; JACKSON & AVALFORD, &C, " DUBLIN : JOHN ROBERTSON. NEW YORK : WILEY* & PUTNAM. BOSTON CROCKER & BREWSTER. PHILADELPHIA : J. W. MOORE. MDCCCXLVIII. printed by m'cosb, park, and DEWAR^. DUNDBE. TRINSLATOK'S PREFACE. The Translator has felt the more interest in the preparation of the first of these Dissertations, from a conviction that it is just now, in England, a seasonable publication. Dr. Arnold's opi- nion of the Book of Daniel has recently obtained a wide circula- tion, and thus the subject has been forced on the attention of English readers. It is not uncommon to hear persons of some intelligence object to the issue of German works of this class in our country, as being, to say the least, unnecessary. " In Eng- land," we are told, " those doubts are unknown which beset a German mind ; why, then, trouble ourselves with replies to objec- tions which we do not feel ?" This can no longer be said, at least respecting the " Authenticity of Daniel." The writer whose words we are about to quote has the merit of stating doubts which every one laying claim to the character of an intelhgent reader of Scripture ought to feel, till he is able to remove them by a fair inductive investigation. The importance of the Book of Daniel, in particular, to the question of Inspiration, ought to give great interest to the subject. Dr. Arnold says — " I have long thought that the greater part of the Book of Daniel is most certainly a very late work, of the time of the Maccabees ; and the pretended prophecy about the Kings of Grecia and Persia, and of the North and South, is mere history, like the poetical prophecies in Virgil and elsewhere. In fact, you can trace distinctly the date when it was written, because the events up to the date are given with historical minuteness, totally unhke the character of real Prophecy ; and beyond that date all is imaginary. * * * The self-same criticism which has established the authenticity of St John's Gos- pel against all questionings, does, I think, equally prove the non- authenticity of great part of Daniel ; that there may be genuine fragments in it, is very likely." (Life, vol. ii. p. 195, 5th ed.) It is surely not desirable that such a statement should go forth, VI TRANSLATORS PREFACE. sanctioned by a name of no ordinai-y piety, candour, and judg- ment, without some attempt to rescue the credit of a book of reputed Holy Scripture. The reader will judge how far our Au- thor has met Dr. Arnold's objections. One circumstance is worthy of being noticed, — that these objections appear to have arisen pri- marily from a previous dogmatic view. Just before the passage quoted, it is said, in reference to his Sermons on Prophecy, " the points in particular on which I did not wish to enter, if I could help it, but which very likely I shall be forced to touch on, relate to the latter chapters of Daniel, which, if genuine, would be a clear exception to my canon of interpretation, as there can be no reasonable spiritual meaning made out of the Kings of the North and South." Dr. Hengstenberg too has his theory of Prophecy, which is stated incidentally in this work ; and it will be for the reader to determine whether he is consistent with himself in maintaining the Authenticity of Daniel ; and if so, which of tlfe two theories is nearer the truth. Dr. A. is not the only oppo- nent who has set out in his examination with dogmatic prejudices, and the reader may be pleased to see in what manner our author deals with these. To make the work more serviceable to general readers, most of the quotations have been translated. The aim throughout has been to give a correct and perspicuous version, even at the risk of sacrificing some other qualities. A few errors have been noticed, some of which must be as- cribed to the translator's distance from the press. B. P. P. Box:Moon, Awf. Vt. I>t-I7, rflEFACE. The Author, perceiving the urgent necessity of a reaction in the department of Introduction to the Old Testament, and feel- ing called upon for this purpose to render what little assistance might be in his power, at first entertained the idea of confi-ont- ing the Compendium of Dr De Wette by another of about the same size. But he soon became aware, that a work which did not carry on the process of investigation before the eyes of its readers, but simply offered the results, could produce no substan- tial conviction in their minds, but would only contribute to a flip- pant condemnation of opponents — a thing extremely repugnant to his judgment. He perceived that such a pubhcation could only be seasonable when all the principal topics belonging to an Introduction had been previously handled, either singly or in a complete work ; so that the Compendium might aim, and might need, to be nothing more than an epitome, to aid the memory, of results already sufficiently established. He formed the design, therefore, of constructing, when the Christology of the Old Tes- tament should be finished, a complete Manual of Introduction, ar- ranging the topics in the order hitherto usually observed. But this plan also he afterwards found himself obliged to rehnquish, for two reasons. It did not seem proper to treat those questions which less affect the essentials of theology, and which, therefore, have been less subject to perversion by a Rationahstic bias, with the same copiousness as the others, as would have been necessai^ in a Manual ; or to place them, as must have been done, in some instances, before those inquiries, of which the results are of the utmost consequence, not only to theology as a science, but also to the Church. Besides this, there was another, a subjective ground. The interpretation of the Messianic predictions in the second part of Zechariah, and in the Book of Daniel, which was intended to be given in the second volume of the Christology, would have VIU PKEFACE. had jio foundation to rest on, if it were not preceded by proofs of the genuineness of these portions. Accordingly, the Author at first purposed to give these investigations in the Christology itself, with the same compressed brevity as those in the first vo- lume respecting the genuineness of the second part of Isaiah. The execution of this design was not difficult in the case of Ze- chariah ; but the impossibility of it in that of Daniel soon ap- peared. The number of arguments adduced against the genuine- ness of Scripture is here particularly large ; few books of the Bible have been assailed by such practised combatants, and with such appearance of having truth on their side ; the reply to seve- ral of the arguments against the genuineness necessarily de- mands, even in the most concise mode of presenting it, no little particularity ; and the same may be said of the production of se- veral of the positive arguments for the genuineness. In scarcely any one part of the inquiry can we refer to anything already pub- lished that exhausts the subject. The author soon discovered that it would be better to leave the task altogether untouched, than to confine it to the narrow limits that could be afforded in the Christology. The former he could not do, partly from its bearing on the Christology, partly because the investigation, once commenced, had excited too lively an interest in his mind. He was willing to liope that, by its successful accomplishment, of which, at the very commencement, there seemed the most favour- able prospect, he might not only rescue the credit of this book, one of tlie most important of the Old Testament, but also excite in the minds of those who are not wilfully blinded to the truth, a wholesome suspicion of the entire body of Rationalistic criticism on the Old Testament, since its most triumphant result is consi- dered to be the spuriousness of this very Book of Daniel I He determined, therefore, to undertake the inquiry in its full extent, and, instead of the Manual of Introduction to the Old Testa- ment, before contemplated, to publish Contributions to it. The first volume, which now appears, is occupied with the disserta- tions on Daniel and on Zechariah, the latter appearing in the form in which it was originally intended for the Christology. The other volumes, whose appearance, although in a state of con- siderable forwardness, will be delayed to admit of the previous completion of the Christology, will next treat of the other spe- PREFACE. IX cially important and disputed points, as the Genuineness of the Pentateuch, the Age of Job, the Age and Credibility of the Books of Chronicles and Esther, the Sources of the Historical Books, the Allegorical Interpretation of the Song of Solomon, &c., and then, if the Lord grant hfe and health, with all the remaining subjects of the Introduction ; so that the Contributions, when finished, may, by the aid of complete tables and indexes, serve the purpose of a proper Manual. To the reply to the first objection against the Genuineness of Da- niel, taken from the alleged Greek words, the author intends here- after to make an addition, which he has not time now to work out, although much has akeady been collected for that purpose. He feels it, however, his duty to observe noic, that the instrument avyu- ^(ovla is mentioned in a passage of Polybius ; and that, on the other hand, no mention of it occurs in Servius, although the Author, who had not a copy of him at hand in the first in- stance quoted him on the authority of Geier, Ch. Ben. Mi CHAELis, Winer, &c. ; the shghtest glance at the passage quoted (Serv. ad Aeii. xi., 737) will suffice to show the mistake. A friend, to whom the author shewed a part of the treatise on Daniel, observed to him that it might possibly require some ex- planation, why he had spoken throughout not so much in the tone of an inquirer, as in that of one who wished to satisfy others of a result akeady established. The author might reply, that every inquirer, before he presents the question in detail to the view of his readers, is supposed to have already fully made it out to his own satisfaction, and is consequently justified in affinning the certainty which he has derived from an investigation of the Avhole, even when he is handling the several parts, provided he does not require his readers to give to the several arguments a force beyond what actually belongs to them. But in the present case the author possesses a still more important justification. Be- ing firmly persuaded that the Divine authority, and consequently the genuineness of Daniel, are decidedly maintained by our Lord and his apostles, he felt it neither possible nor becoming, accord- ing to his principles, for him to present the question as if he him- self had any doubt about the result, or as if the decision depended in the smallest degree, to his own mind, on the issue of such inquiry ; he wished it to be conspicuous at ever}' turn, that his X PREFACE. object was to ofFer that of which he was personally convinced by a higher than human authority, and with human weapons to de- fend it against those who do not acknowledge this authority. These parties cannot reasonably dispute the author's right to as- sume this position, so consonant with his principles, whilst, on the other hand, he is conscious that he has not invalidated his solution of any difficulty, by appealing to an authority not recog- nised by his opponents as well as himself. The author thinks he has a riglit to expect that, as he has em- ployed arguments in his book, he will be answered with arguments. If this righteous demand should not be acceded to, as he can hardly imagine it will, after the experience he has had in regard to the Christology, the loss will not fall upon him, but on those who attempt to anniliilatc evidence with abuse. There was a time when this miglit pass, when a sneering critique of a few lines in the Alhjemeine Deut.sclie Bihliothek could all but blast the fruits of many years' conscientious toil devoted to the cause of the Lord. But that time is now gone by. The author, however, will not on this account refuse to make a conscientious use of every well- founded criticism, in whatever way it may be offered. In the correction of the proof sheets, and the preparation of the index, the author has been assisted by a valued Christian friend, Herr Hilvernick, Cand. theol. of Mecklenburg, who is about shortly to offer to the Icaraed world, as the first fruits of his studies, a complete commentaiy on Daniel. The author was much gratified to receive frequent occasion from him of subjecting his views to a more sifting test. May the Lord bestow his blessing on this little work, and grant that some at least may be liberated by it from a portion of their prejudices against his Holy Word, and be strengthened in tlie faith ! THE AUTHOR. Berlin, Jauunry 10. 1S3I." CONTENTS. THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. Page Chap. I. — History of Attacks ox the Book of Daniel, .. ] Chap. II. — Eeply to Objections, .. .. .. g Sect. i. — Alleged Greek Words, .. .. ,. .. f) ii. — Impure Hebrew, .. .. .. .. 16 iii. — Silence of Jesus Siracb, ^.. .. .. .. 17 iv. — Position in the Canon, "^ . . . . , . 19 V. — Depreciatory Statements of the Jews,/ .. .. .. ao vi. — The 0. T. referred to as a Complete Whole, >•■ ,. 27 vii. — Aimless Profusion of Miracles, ^ . . . . . , 2d viii. — Historical Errors, .. .. .. ., 34 ix. — IrreconcUeable Contradictious, /<: .. ., 53 X. — Improbable and Suspicious Accounts, i . . . . 58 xi. — Later Ideas and Usages, .. *" .. .. 113 xii. — Unusual Definiteness of the Prophecies, '■ .. .. 141 xiii. — This Definiteness ceases with Antiochus Epiphaues, i- . . 1.58 xiv. — Other Objections — 1. The Passage, Chap. xii. _, .. .. .. 175 2. Corrtspoudence in Ideas and Expressions with much Later Books, .. .. . .. .. 170 3. Marks of Jewish National Pride, .. .. 177 4. Absence of all higher Moral Tendency, .. .. 177 5. Passages which speak in Praise of Daniel, .. 179 Chap. III. — Arguments for the Genuineness, .. .. 182 Sect. i. — Testimony of the Author himself, '>■ .. .. 183 ii. — Pveception into the Canon, and General Acknowledgment of Cauonicity, . . . . . . . . ' 192 Sect. iii. — Testimony of Christ and the Apostles, , .. . . 209 iv. — Traces of the Book in pre-Maccabean Times, . . 224 1. The passage of Josephus, ^rc/i. xi. 8, .. .. 224 •^ 2 1 Mace. ii. 59, 60, .. .. .. 2.33 3. The LXX. of Deut. xxxii. 8, and Isaiah xxx. 4, . . 234 XU CONTENTS. Page 4. Badness of the Alex. Version of Daniel which was nearly cotem- porary with the alleged original composition, . . 235 Sect. V. — Character of the language, . . . . . . 240 1. Use of Hehrew and Aramaean, .. .. 240 2. Correspondence of its Aramaean with that of Ezra, and Deviation from that of the Targums, . . . . . . 245 vj. — Exact Knowledge of Historj-, .. .. .. 251 vii. — Familiar acquaintance with the Institutions, Manners, and Cus- toms of the Times of Daniel, viii. — Other argximents, 1. The entire peculiarity of Prophetic Style and the mode of Repre- sentation adopted in the Book, . . . . 285 2, Several things at variance with the spirit of the Maccahean times, .. .. .. .. .. 28S .3. Exact agi-eement of the Historical part and the Prophecies, 2S9 4. Immediate conjunction of the death of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Messianic times, . . . . . . 290 . THE INTEGRITY OF ZECHARIAH. Chap. I. — History of Attacks upon it, .. .. .. 203 II. — Arguments for the Genuineness of the Second Part, 295 III. — Reply TO Objections, .. .. .. 304 Note by the Translator, .. .. .. .. 31C Index of Subjects and Authors, .. .. .. 321 Do. Words, .. .. .. .. .. 326 Do. Passages, .. .. .. .. 327 EEEATA. Page 9, line 5, for with all read of all. 70, line 6, for Haman read ilordecai. ..... 105, top, for worship to the read worship the. 112, line 21, for prevail read prevails. 133, line 12, for Uystaspis read Ilystaspcs. 142, line 5, for exegitical read cxegctieal. 159, top, for phenomeni read phenotncnon. 174, Note, for Aumane r^sad homine. 191, line 24, omit the second of- for respondentur maA respondentem. 218, line 2G, for Elias read Isaiah. line 28, for Eph. v. II, read Epli.v. 14. 259, line 4 from bottom, for chap. vi. read chap. v. THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. In this inquiry we cannot avoid going into considerable detail, not being able to refer to full dissertations already extant on the subject to the same extent as in the case of other books. Dereseb's reply to the acute objections of Bertholdt in his work on Daniel is not, in all respects, satisfactory ; the positive e\idence for the genuineness is to be found in Jahn, and in him only in imperfect outlines. The recent attacks of Bertholdt in his Introduction, of Gesenius, De Wette, Griesinger, Bleek, and Kirms, have hitherto received nothing like a thorough refuta- tion. And hence the prejudice against the book has become pretty general, as if the genuineness of Daniel were indefensible, and given up even by orthodox theologians. CHAP. I. HISTORY OF ATTACKS ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL. We shall first of all give a historical view of the attacks upon it. It is very remarkable, that these have proceeded entirely fi-om such as were enemies of revealed religion altogether, whether be- longing or not to the visible community of its professors, or at least from those who came under the manifest influence of such enemies, and of the spirit of the age as moulded by them. The whole Jewish synagogue and the whole orthodox Christian Church have ever decidedly maintained the genuineness of Daniel. The facts that seem to speak to the contrary only seem to do so With regard to the Jewish synagogue, we are referred to a passage in A 2 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. the Talmud,* where it is said, " The members of the great 35118- gogue wrote Daniel and some other books." Now, we must certainly maintain, against Bertholdt, who {Daniel, T. p. 88, sqq.) takes ana in the sense of introduce, and explains the whole passage merely of the reception into the canon, that it treats of the actual penning of the book. For the meaning assigned to the verb ana, that of an introduction not connected, as it is in Esth. i. 19, ii. 23, with the act of writing, can nowhere be proved, and is specially excluded from the passage before us by the fact, that the •word is there used immediately before of Moses, Joshua, and other sacred writers, and thus necessarily takes the sense of writing, not that of introducing ; comp. the whole passage in Wolf, biblio- iheca Hehr., vol. ii. p. 3. Nothing, however, was farther from the thoughts of the Talmudists than to assert the spuriousness of those writings, the penning of which they ascribe to the men of the gi-eat synagogue. The supposition is quite irreconcileable with the gi'eat reverence they cherish towards those men, whom conse- quently they would never have thought of charging with an impo- sition. They supposed, rather, that the contents of these books became known to the men of the great synagogue, partly by accu- rate ti-adition, partly by fresh inspiration — for they had several prophets among them ; comp. the passages in Aurivillius de HXjncKjofja magna, dissertatt.,^. 147 — and were by them com- mitted to writing without any mistake. As the ground of this eri'oneous opinion, Jarciii, on this passage of the Talmud, men- tions, in reference to Ezekicl and Daniel, and, no doubt, correctly, the Jewish conceit, that no sacred book could be composed beyond the limits of the Holy Land. The con-ectness of tliis ground, which must also be extended to the Book of Esther, is manifest from the circumstance, that just those three books are placed together whose authors lived out of Palestine, The correctness of the ground adduced by Jarchi in reference to the minor pro- phets is more doubtful. Let us pass on to tlie Christian Church. Bertholdt {Dan. i. » Ritlm B(tlru,fol. V), ^s-j-: -r:) a^3i", ha-.Tn" •^'2'^o i-^ip "isra r-{y-ir, ran -r:s "noK rVj'a" — J'iri syiuKjotfic inttf/it(r scripsvninl Kiulg., r/uihits lUleris figiiificaiitiir lihri E:echirlis, dnoilvcim jtroiilutarum mhinnim, fJniiielis rt Estherac. HISTORY OF ATTACKS ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL. -i p. 12) affirms, that very many among the ancient Christians did not regard Daniel as the author. He derives this opinion from some expressions in Origen's hook against Celsus. But the idea is altogether imaginaiy. In that work of Origen, nothing what- ever of the land occurs, except a passing doubt of the heathen Celsus, of which no further proof is attempted, as to the truth of the facts narrated in Daniel. (Comp. vii. 7, § 5, Mosh.) Ber- THOLDT farther appeals to a passage of Isidorus Hispalensis in the seventh century (Origg. vi. 2), " Ezekiel and Daniel are consi- dered to have been written by certain wise men."* But that we are not to conclude with him {Einl. p. 1508) from this passage, that some Christian teachers had private doubts of the genuineness, appears from his putting Ezekiel and Daniel together. This makes it exceedingly probable, that Isidorus, in whose time pre- cise doubts of the genuineness of Daniel are the very last things to be looked for, was merely giving a piece of information which he had obtained from some Jew; and that the viri sajiientes, among whom we are certainly not to reckon authors of fictitious works, are no other than the members of the great synagogue . In the first half of the eighteenth century, Edward Wells pro- pounded the notion, that the first chapter was not written till after Daniel's death. Isaac Newton f and Beausobre {remarqties stir le N. T., t. i. p. 70) maintained that Daniel himself wrote only the last six chapters. Yet they regarded the parts of which they doubted as not on that account less to be relied on than the other portions ;| they only thought they could perceive in the style some reason for the opinion, that it was not Daniel writing about himself, but another perfectly credible author writing about him. Of a totally different character is the denial of the genuineness of Daniel by the opposers of revelation. It must not be over- looked, that this denial is quite indispensable to the ground they * " Ezekiel et Daniel a viris quibusdam sapieutibus script! esse perbibentiu'." + " The six last chapters contain propliecies written at several times by Daniel him- self; the six first are a collection of historical papers written hy others." Observa- tions tipon the P)-ophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St John, i. p. 10. J How fii-mly tbe gi'eat Isaac Newton was persuaded of the genuineness and in- spiration of tbe propbecies of Daniel, his own words will show : " To reject bis pro- phecies," says be, " would be to undermine tbe Christian religion, which is all but founded on his propbecies respecting Christ." A 2 4 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. occupy. The miracles and prophecies of the book so far transcend the ordinary course of things, that tlie recognition of the genuine- ness of Daniel and the recognition of revealed religion arc insepara- bly connected.* Hence we find in every instance of more signal opposition to Christianity, where the contest generally takes a scientific fonn, that attacks have been made at the same time on the genuineness of this book. The list of assailants is opened by Porphyry in the third centur}'. Of his work against the Chris- tian religion, in fifteen books, the whole of the twelfth is devoted to an attack on Daniel. He asserted, according to Jerome in h\s prooemitim to Daniel (opp. v. p. 207), that the book was com- posed by a Jew of Palestine in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, in the Greek language, " and that Daniel did not so much predict future events, as narrate past ones."\ His reason for saying so was the exact con'cspondeuce of the prophecies with actual history down to the times of Antiochus, whilst all beyond this remained unfulfilled. He was answered by Eusebius of Csesarea, Metho- dius of Tyre, Apollinaris of Laodicea in Syria, and by Je- rome ; and the last-mentioned knew how to make a good use of the historical materials so industriously collected by PoRrH\'RY. His work was afterwards, by imperial command, condemned to the flames ; yet Jerome has presented to us not a few fragments out of the twelfth book. Spinoza and Hobbes ai"e generally men- tioned as the first who trod in the footsteps of Porphyry. Neither of them, it is certain, according to their system, could admit the genuineness of Daniel, except from inconsequential reasoning or from ignorance of its contents. Yet there is not to be found in their words, as is commonly affirmed, any distinct disavowal of it. On the contrary, Spinoza, in his traclatus theologico-jwliticus, ch. X. p. 1(30, sqq., expressly says, that the last five chapters were written by Daniel himself — that probably the first seven were ori- • Josepljus, AiUiqq. X. xi. 7, says, that the Book of Daniel offers the most effectual refutation of the Epicurean view of the world : " too-xj tovi avaywuxtKovrat — roh^ ' V^TTiKovptiovi tK TovTwv tvpicTKiLv TmrXai/tifJitvovi, o'i Titv Ti TTpovoiuv iKftoWovcri Tou fiiou, KUi Tov .Jfdii fivK d^iovpovTiipt, TrduTit in'poipm uTrofidivoi/Ta." + " Et non tani Danielem ventiira dixissc, quam ilhiin nnrrosse prxteriln. HISTORY OF ATTACKS ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 5 ginally a portion of the Chaldee annals — that these different parts were, at a very late period, transcribed together, and published by some unknown author, cither to prevent the introduction of spu- rious books of Daniel, or to show that the prophecies of Daniel were fulfilled, and in this manner to confirm the nation in a sted- fast attachment to their religion. If we follow the words of Spi- noza, the credibility of the first seven chapters is not for a moment disputed by him. Hobbes says {Leviathan, c. 33), that Jere- miah, Obadiah, Nahum, and Habakkuk prophesied about the time of the captivity, " hut whetlter they themselves tvrote and jrub- lished these prophesies cannot he known;'* and that the same is true of Ezekiel, Daniel, Haggai, and Zechariah. So far as words go, there is nothing more asserted by him here, than that it is un- certain whether the prophets mentioned did themselves prepare the collections of prophecies called after them. Perhaps, however, they both meant to imply more than they expressly said. Among the English Deists, Collins tried to impugn the genu- ineness of the book, but his learning came far behind his hatred of Kevelation ; so that, even according to the judgment of Ber- THOLDT {Einl. p. 1508), he could not conceal, beneath the blinding pretext of the difficulty inherent in the subject itself, that his actuating motive M^as his infidelity. His kindred spirits in Germany since the last quarter of the last century have suc- ceeded better in this. Semler rejected the inspiration of Daniel, without assigning any further reason than that he found "no such benefit likely to result from the book as God surely intends to confer on man when he makes use of means of a very exti'a- ordinaiy character." (Comp. Untersuch. d. Canon iii. p. 505.) The first step in the way of a scholarlike attack on the book was made by J. D. Michaelis, who, however, must not be ranked in the same class with subsequent opponents. He maintained very decidedly the genuineness of chap, i., ii., and vii.-xii. ; and even on his doubts of the genuineness of chaps, iii.-vi. he laid no peculiar stress. In reference to one of his arguments, that derived from the Greek words occurring in chaj). 3, he remarked himself, that the more closely they were examined, the more completely most of them disappeared. (Comp. Antn. f. " Utnim autcm proplictins suas ipsi scriptas edidcrint, sciri non potest." 0 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. Utir/ek'hr. X. Bemerk. z. Dan., p. 22, ff.) He declared that Daniel, on account of his minute and circumstantially fulfilled prophecies, was one of the strongest proofs of the divinity of revealed religion. {Or. Bill. 1, p. 197.) Eichhokx went far- ther ; yet in the first and second editions of his Einleitung ins A. T., he ventured to reject only the first six chapters ; the genu- ineness of the last six was defended hy him, in glaring contradic- tion to the system which he had even then adopted. He was fol- lowed by Hezel {die Bibel ii. s. w. vi. p. 741. fl". ed. ii.) According to him, the first six chapters were, at some later period, prefixed as au introduction to the second and genuine part, and contain much that is fabulous. He was still so satisfied of tlie genuineness of the second part, that he observed, " Daniel is the most important witness among all the prophets, to the credibility of the prophets in general, and of Divine revelation and the Christian religion in particular." The first who directed liis attacks against the entire book was Corrodi, who took his stand entirely on antisupranaturalist ground. He maintained, in his Beleuchtuny des Bihelcanons Bd. I, p. 75, ff., (comp. his FrcimlUh. VersucJie, and Gesch. des Chiliasm. I., p. 247, sqq.) that it was fabricated by some impostor in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Eiciihorn seemed only to have been waiting for such a pioneer to relieve his own mind of its heavy burden. {Einl. 3 u. 4. Ausg.) Then comes Bertholdt, far surpassing all previous opponents in acuteness and precision {Daniel neii uhers. u. erkl. 1806-8, 2 Bde. S. 22 ff. and Einl. S. 1511 ff.) ; but, alas ! truthfulness and even candour ai'e sadly wanting in his researches. Griesinger {ncue Ansicht der Aufsiitze im Buche Daniel, 1812) did little more than repeat the old arguments in a perplexed form. Gesenius {Alhjemcine Litterat. Z. 1810, Nr. 57, E. B. Nr. 80) differed fi-om Eighhorn and Bertholdt in defining the aim of the book. Bleek (theol. Zeitschrift von ScHLEiERMACHER, De Wette, und LucKE, iii. p. 171, ff.) attempted to sift, and render more cutting and complete, Ber- tholdt's reasoning against the genuineness, and deserved credit for exposing in detail the futility of Eichhorn's and Bertholdt's hypotlicsis of a plurality of authors, and showing the unity of the book. He went, however, farther than either of them, and even than Gesenius ^w Jes. i., p. 52; for he denied that the book had HISTORY OF ATTACKS ON THE BOOK OF DANIEL. 7 any historical foundation whatever. Several arguments brought forward by Bertholdt were given up by him as untenable ; others, on the contrary, that are manifestly still more untenable, were declared to be valid ; so that the praise which Sack gives to his examination of the question, as being of a moro purely scien- tific character, lies open to reasonable suspicion. Kirms {com- mentatio hisforico-critica, exhihens descriptionem et censuram recentium de Daiiielis lihro opinionum, Jena 1828) offered little of his own, but there is an admirable completeness in his collec- tion and arrangement of the modern views ; and he has exposed, in a very clever manner, the untenableness of those points in which Bleek went farther than his predecessors. De Wette {Einl. ins. A. T. 3te Aufl.) gives, in succinct review, the argu- ments of Bertholdt and Bleek, whom the other disputants come far behind. The impugners of the genuineness of Daniel may be divided into two great classes. The arguments of the first class, which relate to the object of the book, we shall by and by have an opportunity of looking into more narrowly. Those of the other relate to the oneness or plurality of the supposed authorship. It is no small advantage to us here, that we can assume the oneness of the authorship as a thing now generally conceded. Since the time of Eichhorn and Bertholdt, the latter of whom makes the book to consist of nine portions, written by different authors, living at different times, and collected into one volume after the religious persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, no further advo- cate of a plurality has appeared. On the contrary, Gesenius, De Wette, Bleek, and Kirms, have so clearly shown that there was but one author (and even Dereser had preceded them in this), that we can make our appeal to them, although we may not wholly coincide in their arguments. In this way our task is rendered very simple ; and, at the same time, we have this advan- tage, that every argument by which we show that any single por- tion of the book could not have been composed by the alleged Pseudo-Daniel living after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, affords proof likewise of the genuineness of the whole. Not to mention the older authors, who undertook the easy task of replying to the objections of Porphyry, &c. (comp. Wolf's enumeration of them, 1. c. i., p. 335), there have not been want- 8 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. ing in modem times numerous, and in some i:i'»tnn.es acute and learned, defenders of the genuineness of Danitl. I^tdeuwald's defence of the first six cliapters (Helrast. 17«7j is not very im- portant, hut still is nut to he left out of the account. Stai^dlin {VnifuiKj cinii/er Meinunyen Yiher den UrsjtruNy des Buvhcs Daniel, in the neue BeHriir/e zur Erliiut. der Pruph. Gcitt. 1791), it is true, defended the genuineness not without some limita- tions ;* and he even favoured that erroneous hypothesis which niidvcs it difficult to defend the genuineness at all, namely — that the defi- nite prophecies of the whole book do not extend beyond the times of the Maccabees (comp. his Ahh.Dan.'ix. 24-27 nach Paralleht. erkl., ehendas. 8. 87-02) ; but, at the same time, he declared there was a preponderance of probability for the genuineness of the principal portions, and eanied the merit of totally annihilating some arguments brought by Corrodi against it, and furnishing the decided defender of it with many useful hints. At a later period, when his constantly growing inchnation to rationalism, of which he himself, towards the end of lus life, speaks with sorrow (eomp. Selbsth. p. 17), released him from all obligation to avow the genuineness of the book, he declared liimself for Bertholdt's view. Beckhaus {Intrr/ritdl der proph. f>chriften, p. 297 ff.), in his defence of the genuineness of the second part, to which his object confines liim, avails himself chiefly of the arguments of EiCHHORN and Staudlin. But the best defender of all is indis- putably Jahn, to whom also later ones are chiefly indebted. After him Dereser is the only writer who has produced a detailed argument in its favour : it is founded in the main on that of Jahn, but contains much original remark {die Pmjdieten Ezechiel nnd Daniel ekliirt, Frcf. 1810.) "Tlie reader may find detached valuable obsen^ations in defence of the genuineness of Daniel, in der Rec. von Berth. Comm. in der Jen. Litteraturz. 1809, Nr. 77, 78, and in die holl. Bill./, theol. Lift. 1809, N. f) ; in Tareau, institutio interpref. V. T. p. 424-25, 628-31 ; in RovAARDS, over den geest en het helang van het hook Dan., in der Ahhandl. der Haar/er Geselhch. f. d. J. 1821 ; in Sack, • Comp.his Aiitobiopr«pliy in tlie work entitled : ZurErinnernnR an Staudlis von IIemrkn, Gi.lt. I'^vJd, p. II. "I iliil not wish proporly to (Infoinl tlie (genuineness of Piinii'l, but sini]>l) to iuvrilidnt*' the iirgjuncnfs luldnccd l>y oUiera agfunst it." ^ REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. Apologetik, p. 276 ff. ; in Sciioll, Comment, de LXX., Hebdo- mad. Ban. Frcf. 1829, p. 5, G, 32-34. — Ackermann {intro- ductio in lihrr. V. F. Wien, 182G) gives the arguments of Jaun with hardly any addition. Before we attempt to establish, by positive proof, the genuine- ness of Daniel, we sliall show the fallacy of the arguments adduced against it. And we shall confine our remarks principally to the objections of Bertholdt and Bleek, without, however, omitting to notice any thing original that other opponents Iiave brought forward, unless it is to be regarded, like many of the objections of CoRRODi, as now entirely antiquated. The arguments against it are the following. CHAP. II. — REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. SECT. I. GREEK WORDS. " We meet with Greek words in the Book of Daniel ; and this circumstance excludes the idea of an earlier composition than (tak- ing the highest, but still an improbable supposition) towards the middle of the reign of Darius Hystaspis, when Daniel could no longer have been alive. a-'tomiB 7rpoTi/xoi, dmps ^Oefyixa, sii^s Krjpv^, t'^a Krjpvaaetv, oi'^rT'p Ki6apt<;, KSao aaf^L^vKT), n^ss^'io avficjioovia, '••aios yjraXrrjpiov, ttJ-^as ireracro'^, naTaj vo/iii(T/jba." Berth. Comm. I, p. 24. This list has been much lessened by later opponents. That the first two words are not of Greek, but Persian origin — Par- domim, in Parsee, (jrandees ; lieiyham, in Parsee, or Pedam, in Pehlvi, word — has been shewTi by Jahn, and admitted by Gesenius {Gesch. der Heh. Sprache and Schr. p. Gl, G4), De Wette, Bleek, Kirms, and even by Bertholdt {Einl. 1534.), But, if we are to hsten to Bertholdt, the advocates of the genuineness will gain nothing by this admission. He affii'ms that even the use of Persian words by Daniel is not to be ac- counted for. It is vei7 true, he says, that Daniel held offices in the Persian government, but only in the later yeai's of Ms life ; and, even granting that he himself was acquainted with the Per- sian language before that, yet the manner in which these words are employed in the Book of Daniel supposes, what cannot be believed, that such words had been generally adopted into the 10 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. language of the Jewish exiles as early as the time of Daniel. In rebutting this objection, we cannot content ourselves with the remark of Dereser, that Elam was subject to the sway of Nebuchadnezzar; and we are the less disposed to do so, because Bertholdt, as we shall see presently, denies this.* It is almost unanimously agi-eed by modern Hnguists, that the names of Baby- lonian gods, kings, and other persons, which occur in the Bible and in profane writers, find their explanation in the Persian. Comp. LoRSBACH, Archiv.f. Bill, und Moryml. Litt. ii., 240, ft". Gesenius, Gesch. S. 63. Eosenm'uller, Alterthumfik. i. 2, p. 33, 77, 82, 85. Now, if we take the explanation of LoRS- BACH and others, that the Chaldeans themselves belonged to the ]\Iedo-Persian stock; or that of Rosenmuller, that these words belonged to the Assyrian language, a dialect of the ISIedo-Persian, and became naturalized in Babylon through the Assyrian domi- nation ; or, if with Gesenius, in his later explanations of this circumstance (comp. Encycl. von Ersch w. Gruber, Th. 10, p. Ill), we assume, what has the preponderance of probabiUty in its favour, that both nations, the Assyrians and Chaldeans, were of the Medo-Persian stock ; in any case, the fact is estabhshed that, even in Daniel's time, there existed, in the Babylonian lan- guage, an important Persian element, and that, consequently, Persian words might pass also into the language of the Jews in the captivity. Even if the assertion of Gesenius {Gescli. p. 00), could be proved con-ect, that the authors hving in Palestine did not make use of Persian words before tlie period of the Persian dominion, this would not at all affect the case of Daniel. But we find in Jeremiah too, and, to all appearance, even in Isaiah and Nahum, words whose Persian derivation is all but indisputable. V. BoHLEN {Si/mholae ad interpret. S. Sc. ex linf/. Pers. p. 19, .^) adduces a considerable number of such. If some of these words are doubtful, yet of several the Persian origin is certain. As to two of the words, quoted as borrowed from the Greek, it is uncertain whether they were originally Semitic, or were borrowed • LousBACH also, Arcliiv. ii. 245, obscives— " In very early times, when the Ara- niieiiiis were govtriUMl liy their own kind's, they lind for their neiglibours on the east, .laphctic tribes, who spoko Persian, in Media, Susiana, and Elyniais; so ll)at many a I'ei-sian woid would lie imiiorted among them at that period, both in peace and war." REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 1 1 from the Persian : natas is compared by V. Bohlen, p. 2G, with the Persian niivaza, donatio ; Winer s. v. agrees with him. Most lexicographers and commentators, however, (comp. Ges.* s. V.) derive it from the Chaldee inn, erogare. The derivation from the Greek v6[MLafjba, is, according to Gesenius and Winer, opposed by the unsuitableness of the meaning to the passage in question (Dan. ii. 6), and by the usage of the Chaldee language, in which it never has the meaning of money. The verb i^s, and the noun sti-^d, according to Jahn and Dereser, ai'e cognate with the Zend Kltresio, to call to from hehind, to shout, as are KTjpvaaeiv and K^pv^ in Greek, which belongs to the same family of languages. But the wide diffusion of the root, not only in Chaldee, but in Syriac, renders it more probable that it was originally Semitic. Its relation to the Greek may be accidental, or it comes,, like many other words, from the original language of the world, or it is an instance of onomatopoeia. The derivation fi'om the Greek is rejected by Gesenius also. 'ir'^t> is the Syriac petsho. Against the deriva- tion from TreTacra, comp. Gesenius and Winer, s. v. Thus there remain only four names of musical instruments, oc- curring in chap. 3. We begin with the word '^^f^^^'', iii. 5, 15, which Bleek says, p. 217, is of itself most decisive, and even war- ants us in assigning to the others a derivation from the Greek. " It is manifestly the Greek av/Mcftcovia, and surely no one will affirm that the Greeks first obtained the word, along with the thing, from Asia, and that it came from the same quarter to the Jews or Babylonians, for it is too clearly compounded of the Greek words (Tvv and (fxoveiv." The following reasons, however, mih- tate against its derivation from the Greek. I. The word avfM- (f)covia is never found in the Greek, or in the Latin of the classi- cal writers, in the sense of a pai'ticular musical instrument. The only authorities f for the existence of such an instrument, are Servius on Virgil, in the 5th, and Isidorus Hisp., in the 7th century — for Jerome has been adduced as such incorrectly. It * In his Lexicon Mnnuale Gesenius says lie prefers the Persian derivation; reniarkiug that, if from Chaldee, it could only come from a Niphul form, which does not exist. — Transl. + But comp. Pref — Tr. 12 THE GEXUINENESS OF DANIEL. is very probable, bowever, tbat these authors gave to an origi- nally foreign appellation a Greek etymology, sbghtly altering the word ; numerous examples might be adduced to prove that this was very frequent in later times. To mention a few — Festus derives the instrument t/inf/ris, which is of Phoenician origin and Phoenician etymology, a (/in(/riendo anseriim. Kivvpa, the Hebrew ""'2?, is derived by Suidas and otbers airo rov Kivhv rd vevpa ; by Hesychius, who explained it by Ktddpa oiKrpa, from •KLvvpeaOat, lamentari. Comp. Bochart, Cati. ii. 7. The Egvptian j9i-?-«/WM-^, radius solis, was altered by the Greeks into irvpafjbk, and they derived it from irvp, fire. Comp. Jab- LONSKi, Panth. Aeg. Prolegg., p. Ixxxiii. But, if any one chooses to assert that there was really an instrument in their time bearing the Greek name avfMcfxovia, he is not in the least warranted in claiming that appellation for the older Greek lan- guage ; it cannot for a moment be supposed, with the numerous accounts we have in which music is mentioned, that, if such a term had really existed, it would not have come down to us in some one of the old writers. 2. The same instrument is called in v. 10, in the text, rr^js-^D. By this change, the comparison of the word with the Greek avfjicfxovla lies still more open to suspicion. It furnishes certain proof that the Chaldee word corresponds to the Syriac tzephunijo, tuba, tibia. And that this Syriacword is cor- rupted from the Greek, is no probable supposition. These argu- ments shew, at least, thus much, that the derivation from o-f/z- (f)Q)via, as being doubtful, cannot have any force of evidence. On the other names, even Bleek, as afready remarked, lays no peculiai' stress. As to one of them, Ksao, its non- Greek origin can be clearly made out. Strabo, 1. x., in Bochart 1. c, says — " Some of the instruments are called by foreign names, as vd^Xa, aa/M^vKr] (which is also called ^dp^no^), /jbaydSe'i, and several others,* and AtheNvEUS informs us, 1. iv., in I^ochart 1. c, from an earlier writer, " that the Satnbuca, which is called the Phoenician lyre, was an invention of the Syrians.f The foreign original of Sambuca is affirmed also by Clemens Alex. Strom. 1. i. p. 307. Even Bleek, in the face of these decided testimonies, can- • Tuiv opydvwv ivia (iap/iapwt dvdfxaaTai, viij3\a Kai ijrr)3), to Daniel also as a part of them. REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 27 SEC. VI. THE O. T. ALLUDED TO AS A COMPLETE WHOLE. " But even the book itself affords a pretty certain proof, that it was first composed at a time when the rest of the canon was already made up and regarded as a complete whole. In chap. ix. 2, a collection is designated by the term °'''?s3lI, in which the pro- phecies of Jeremiah were to be found ; this expression, like to, ^i^Xla, Tj ypacfiT], at ypacpal, can only designate the entire com- pass of the holy writings of the Jewish people which had superior canonical authority, and among which no doubt were found, not only the prophetic writings, but also the Pentateuch, since it can- not be believed that that designation was ever intended to be used specially of any collection which did not include the Pentateuch. The author thus unintentionally betrays the age in which he wrote, since he makes Daniel acquainted with the collection of sacred writings which in his time did not yet exist." So Bleek, 1. c. p. 209, before him Gesenius, s. v. isd, after him Kirms, p. 10, and Winer, s. v. ; Bertholdt, Comm. i. p. 79, mentions this argu- ment only in passing; for he, like De Wette, Finl. § 13, a, understands by the n-^iso merely a particular collection of prophetic writings. It is in this argument, first of all, arbitrarily assumed, that ^T^fl!' is a standing designation of a complete and generally acknowledged collection of sacred writings. The article, on which even Ch. B. Michaelis grounds this assumption, does not prove this. " I Daniel," it is said, " examined in the writings, °"''?5??, the number of the years which, according to the prophecy of Jere- miah, should elapse till the restoration of the state." The article stands frequently with objects " which, as definite in their kind, are intelligible to the hearer from the subject-matter of the dis- course and the context." Comp. Ewald, Gramm p. 567. Ac- cordingly, the writings here are those writings in which the said prophecy of Jeremiah is contained. The reference to the com- plete whole of the 0. T. canon is opposed by the circumstance, that even in the later usage of the language °"'":s?^! never occurs as a termimis techniciis — this is rather hakketuhim — to designate it. Moreover, the reputed pseudo-Daniel could not speak of a comjileted collection for this reason also, that he himself must ^B GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. have had it iu view to procure for his composition a reception into the canon. Nothing more, therefore, can be gathered from this passage, than that Daniel was in possession of certain sacred writings, of which we know nothing fuither than that the collec- tion of the prophecies of Jeremiah must have been among them. But that this can prove anything against tlie genuineness of the book, surely no one will maintain. We shall not once refer to the fact that, according to a preponderance of evidence, a collec- tion of sacred writings prepared publica auclorilate, was to be found in the temple even before the captivity. A defence of the reasoning of Eichhorn, Einl. i. § 3, of Pareau, 1. c. p. 49, fi'., and of others, against the objections of Bauer, ^'orkodi, and Bertholdt, and a confirmation of it would here lead us too fsu", and is not indispensably necessary to our cause. It is enough for us to shew, that before tlie collection of the canon after the captivity there existed private collections of sacred writings. This results properly from the nature of the case. If Moses and the prophets were always acknowledged as Divine messengers (and innumerable proofs of this can be adduced liom their writ- ings), the pious subjects of the theocracy would feel themselves called on by this acknowledgment to get possession of the most complete collection of their writings possible. And we are at no loss for historical proof that this demand w^as met. The prophet Jeremiah, for instance, must have possessed a considerable col- lection of sacred writings. This may be indisputably shown from those passages of his prophecies in which the ^^Titings of eaiher prophets are imitated. Amongst others he had before him the Pentateuch, Isaiah, ObatUah, Micah, who is expressly quoted xxvi. 12,''a collection of Psalms, the Book of Job (comp. the cursing of liis birth xv. 10, and especially xx. 14, with Job chap, iii.) ; comp. Eichhorn, i/'/v//. § ;j3G ; De Wette § 217; Jahn ii. 2, 403, ff., Kleinert, Eclilheit des Jesa/a, p. 130, ff. Equally nume- rous were the writings Avhich Zechariah had before him, as will be shewn below in the dissertation on the integrity of Zechariah. More thim these two instances arc not required to set aside the wliole lu-gument. We have no need whatever to take refuge in the bold supposition of Pareau (p. 52), tiiat Jeremiah, befoio the burning of the temple, according to the Jewish tradition (a very rmccrtain one. contained merely in the passage, for the most REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 29 jiart fabulous, 2 Mace. ii. 4-8, and even there not at all clearly), had saved the sacred library, and entrusted it to Daniel's keeping, with the addition of his own prophecies, of which latter the proof is grounded only on one passage, misunderstood through a false reference of the article. Daniel was only in possession of one of the more or less ample private collections, from which, after the captivity, the complete canon of the 0. T. was compiled. SEC. VII. AIMLESS PKOFUSION OF MIRACLES. " We find in Daniel an aimless profusion of miracles. Of what use was it to Nebuchadnezzar to know who would be his successors, or to be acquainted with the revolutions that were to take place afterwards in his monarchy ? Was it worth such a manifold variety of miracles to satisfy his political curiosity ? What was the object of making known to Belshazzar, by a writ- ing which nobody but Daniel could read, tliat the Medes and Persians were to be masters of his capital ? &c. This want of any adequate aim in miracles altogether surpassing the common course of nature, must perplex even the most candid inquirer." So particularly Bertholdt {Comm. i. 22) ; Griesinger, p. 49 ; KiRMS, p. 11 It is perfectly clear that this attack is directed properly against the miracles themselves ; yet it is deserving of our consideration, inasmuch as it is disguised under a more seemly pretext. Undoubtedly it is the existence of an aim wor- thy of God that distinguishes the miracles of Scripture from the heathen prodigies ; and the genuineness of the Book of Daniel would fare badly if such an aim could not be pointed out in the miracles contained in it. But we need not here have recourse to mere conjectures and possibilities; the book itself gives us dis- tinct and express explanations concerning the objects of the miracles. " The aim of the narratives in the Book of Daniel," observes Griesinger, p. 81, quite correctly, although from the correct fact he draws a false conclusion, " is not hidden : that Jehovah is mightier than all the gods of the heathen ; that he alone determines the destinies of the kingdoms of the world ; that those who in wicked pride exalt themselves above Jehovah, and afflict his beloved people, are not allowed by him to go unpunished; MO GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. this is constantly repeated, not merely as occasion might call for it, but on purpose, quite designedly." Let a person only read carefully through the first six chapters, and he will find in every single miraculous occurrence this object distinctly stated. After Daniel, for instance, has told and interpreted to Nebuchadnezzar his dream, Nebuchadnezzar in astonishment acknowledges, ii. 46, that the God of the Jews is a God above all gods, a Lord above all kings, who reveals secrets. In chap. iii. Nebuchadnezzar, when he had, ver. lo, arrogantly defied the God of Israel, and God had, by the miraculous deliverance of his worshippers, vindicated his honour against the idols, praises Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- nego, because they would not pray to any god but their God, and prohibits all liis subjects from blaspheming the God of Israel, because there is no other god who can deUver as he can. In regard to the miracle of the writing hand, it is, chap. v. 24, expressly said that it was wrought to manifest the omnipotence of the God, whom Belshazzar in his rash insolence had derided at an idol feast, and compared disparagingly with the idols. In Daniel's deliverance from the lions' den Darius the Mede sees an evidence of the omnipotence of the God of Israel, and issues a command that all his subjects shall fear and reverence the God of Israel. But the question may be farther asked, whether, just in the time of Daniel, the attainment of this object, the manifesta- tion of the omnipotence of the God of Israel before the heathen kings and nations, was of such importance that the means em- ployed exhibit no disproportion to the end. This question can only be answered in the affirmative, by him who acknowledges with all his heart the divine origin of revealed religion in general, and has a corresponding apprehension of the subhmity of the aims to be realized by it, and for the following reasons : — L The people of the covenant, being carried away into capti- vity, into the midst of idolatrous people, were exposed in a far greater degree to the temptation of apostatizing, which, even previously in their fatherland, they had not been able to resist. The wholesome excitement which had been secured bv their livinfj together under the institutions of rehgion, and by its central point, the temple, was gone ; there was present, according to the ideas of the ancient world, the thought, that the derision of the heathen, who inferred from the impotency of the people the impotency of REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 31 their God, was well founded. Even the better sort, who, mindful of the repeated declarations of the prophets, acknowledged that the cause lay not in the impotency of God, but in the corruption of the people, could not tell how to understand it, that God had not " for his name's sake" protected his people from total ruin. The hope of the promised deliverance found nothing at all on which to fasten in the visible appearance of things. Now, such being their state of mind, in proof of which a multitude of pas- sages might easily be adduced, it was certainly most fitting (if, that is to say, the maintenance of the true religion among the people of the covenant, the necessary condition of the appearance of the Messiah, was of any importance) that the weakness of their faith should be assisted even by sensible means of support, and the omnipotence of the true God be made known in a striking- manner in what was actually visible, that the elevation of Daniel by these miraculous events to the highest dignities in the heathen court should serve as a sign and a pledge of the approaching exaltation of the whole people. This reason is noticed by Jerome in his Comm. — " Quod quidein et in Joseph apud Pharaonem et Aegyptum factum legimus et in Mardochao apud Assverum : ut in utraque gente haherent captivi et p)eregrinantes Judtei solatia, videntes hominem gentis suae Aegyptioruni esse princi- peni vel Chaldaorum!' 2. As Joseph, by miraculous intei-positions of Providence in a foreign land, was raised to the liighest dignity, so as to become the preserver of his family, to whose narrow limits the kingdom of God was then confined ; as at a later period God, by miracles far surpassing in magnitude those wliich occur in our book, effected the liberation of his people, when they were, for the first time, oppressed in an enemy's land ; so the object of the miracles enacted in Daniel's time was to prepare for the hberation of the Israelites, by producing a conviction of the omnipotence of the Lord, and of the authority of Daniel. That the latter had a very great share in bringing about that event, is partly allowed, even by our opponents. Thus Bertholdt says, in contradiction to his assertion of the aimlessness of the miracles, Comtn. i. p. 11, that Daniel without doubt very much contributed to obtain the permission from Cynis for the exiled Jews to return to their father- land, and to build Jerusalem and the Temple anew. Indeed, 32 GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. unless we admit this, it is inexplicable why Cyras, in the edict preserved to us in Ezra i. 1-4, amidst an avowal of the tutelary God of the Jewish nation as the common Lord of heaven and earth, who had bestowed on him all the kingdoms of the earth, should have given an order for the liberation of the people, and the rebuilding of the Temple. That the motives attributed to Cyrus by De Wette, Gesenius {zu Jes. xh. 2), and Schlosser, are insufficient to explain the fact, has been strikingly shewn by Kleinert, 1. c. p. 155, ff. It is only necessary to look at the edict to be convinced that a certain similarity of rehgions, with far greater dissimilarity in other respects, could not have called it forth ; and the assertion that Cyrus favoured the Jews from poli- tical grounds, ascribes to this people an importance which they did not at that time by any means possess. We perfectly agree with Kleineiit's opinion, which he has well sustained, that the immediate occasion of the edict was the reading of the prophecies of Isaiah concerning the liberation to be granted to the Jews by Cyrus. But this very occasion presupposes another more remote cause of the edict, the influence of Daniel. It cannot be believed that the prophecies of Isaiah laid before Cyrus ex ahrupto by an unknown Jew, of the genuineness of which, in such a case, there was nothing to assure him, should have moved him to such weighty decisions ; it cannot be believed that he should have attained to such a conviction of the omnipotence of the true God, if he had not previously become acquainted with it in more unequi- vocal declarations. On the other hand, all is easily explained as soon as we assume the co-operation of Daniel. How much he longed for the deliverance of his people, is shown in chap. ix. He had already obtained from the Chaldtean kings an acknowledgment of the God of Israel as the Lord over all lords, and the God over all gods ; Darius Medus had raised him to the highest honours when he became acquainted with his remarkable prophecy to Belshazzar, and had afterwards, in a public edict, expressed the recoguition of the God of Israel, which we find again in the edict of Cyrus. There remained now only one step to the liberation of the Israel- ites, and it was Daniel that influenced Cyrus to take the stop, partly by his great credit with the monarch, resulting from all the preceding miraculous events, even those which had occurred under the reign of the Chaldeans — partly by his laying before REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 33 him the prophecies of Isaiah concerning him, which he attested with his own authority. But supposing we were to reject the latter account, we should be so much tlie more compelled in order to an explanation of the undeniable fact of the deliverance ot the Israehtes, to assume the co-operation of Daniel. 3. But also in reference to the heathens tliemselves, these declarations of the omnipotence of the true God were not without then- importance. We cannot c'ertainly admit, with' several ancient interpreters, that the heathen kings were really converted by them • the contrary may be proved from this very book. But yet a whole- some dread of the God of Israel was awakened among the hea- thens, and thereby limits were set to that proud contempt of him which had been pecuharly nourished at that time by the weakness ot his people. This, moreover, served as a prelude and a prepa- ration for the farther and more perfect manifestation of his dignity among them ;* and, at the same time, independently of any deter- minate action, it was demanded by the majesty of God, which never eft Itself without witness when the true God came into competi- tion with Idols, and was, as it were, called upon to vindicate itself against them ; as, e. g., the destruction of Pharaoh and his army was rendered necessary on this ground alone, if there had been no other ; and the destruction of Sennacherib's army, too, had cer- tainly this for its object in part. After these remarks, we submit to our readers whether they will agree with Griesinger, who maintains, p. 49, that, although plausible aims may be imagined m some of the miracles, yet the needlessly profuse expenditure of miracles can m no way be reconciled with the wisdom of God Ihis assertion appears to us all the more unfounded, if we assume, farther, that the efficacy of the miracles was not calculated on merely as affecting the contemporaries of Daniel, but that they had a reference to the later community of the faithful, as well that of Uie Old Testament-namely, under the persecutions of Antiochus -Lpiphanes (comp. 1 Mace. li. 52-60) -as that of the New, being intended to serve, as they in fact have served, for the confirmation of heir faith, of wliich numerous and striking instances might be adduced fi-om the Christian Church. co:4ts>r^^ j:??:S: X.:;i»;!.:L:s.s'r;?»rr ^""■- - sqq. C •j] rut: ciENriNF.NKss of danjkl. SEl'T. VIII. HISTORICAL ERRORS. I. " The Book of Dauiel contmns historical errors, wliich it is impossible iJaniel could have penned, and which can only be ex- plained on the assumption that the writer was of later date. The most glaring instance is ch. viii. 1, 2. According to this pas- sage, Daniel, in the third year of Belshazzar, is in Shushan the palace, in the province of Elymais. In the 27th verse, he says, that he had official business to transact here for the king. This account is, in many respects, inconsistent with history, a. The province of Elam never belonged to the Chaldean court in Ba- bylon. That it was not under the government of Nebuchadnezzar, appears from Jeremiah xxv. 25, and Isaiah xxi. 2, where it is mentioned as part of the Median kingdom. I'rom his weak suc- cessors its subjugation is not at all to be expected. It is there- fore an offence against history to say, that Daniel was then in this land, and had public business to transact there, h. Mention is here made of a palace in Shushan. But in Nabonned's time there was as yet neither court nor palace in the capital of Ely- mais. It was the kings after Cyrus who first took up their win- ter residence in Shushan ; Darius Hystaspis was the first to erect the buildings required for that pui-pose. Plin. H. N. vi. 20. c. The town, as we learn from Herodotus, had formerly another name. It was not till long after the time refen'ed to in our pas- sage, that the figurative name 1^"^^, lily, given by Darius Hystas- pis to the palace, on account of its splendour, was applied to the city." So, at great length, Behtholdt, Com in. i. 34 ; ii. 4 70, ff. ; Einl. p. 1541 ; and after liim Gkiesinger, p. 40 ; De Wette, &c. But all these arguments may be shown, with complete cer- tainty, to be unfounded. a. It can be shown that Nebuchadnezzar conquered Elam, and incorporated it with his kingdom, as Eosenmuller has recently asserted, Bibl. AUerthumsk. i. 1, p. 309. At the beginning of the reign of Zedckiuh, Jeremiah prophecies to the kingdom of Elam destruction and ruin by the Chaldeans, ch. xlix. 31, fl'. The fulfilment of this prophecy is shown by Ezekiel xxxii. 24, where, in a prophecy uttered soon aftfr tlio destruction of .Tcru- REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 35 salem, among the other kingdoms destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, Elam is brought forward. If, then, it is estabhshed that Nebu- chadnezzar subjugated Elam, one cannot see how, in the third year of Belshazzar, fourteen years before the conquest of Babylon by the Medo-Persian army (for the last king of the Chaldeans reigned, according to Berosus and Ptolemy, seventeen years), it should have been subject to Median domination. The two passages adduced by Bertholdt do not at all prove this. The passage in Jere- miah speaks to the very contrary. Elam, in this prophecy uttered in the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, is placed along with Media, only because of its proximity ; to it, as well as to Media, independent kings are ascribed, and the conquest of the people by Nebuchadnezzar declared. In Isaiah, certainly, Elam appears in conjunction with Media as the people which the Chal- deans were to conquer ; but, in all probability, Elam stands here in that more comprehensive sense in which it generally occurs in the older books of Scripture, and serves for a designation of Persia, whose peculiar name occurs first in Ezekiel ; comp. Yi- tringa and Gesenius, in loc. But, even if Elam had just the same sense as in Daniel, yet nothing could be farther from what the passage proves, than that, in the third year of Belshazzar, the Elamites were not subject to the Chaldeans. Nothing more could be gathered from it, than that, on the breaking out of the war against the Chaldeans, the Elamites would voluntarily go over to the Medes, or, subjugated by them, would serve in their army. No difficulty whatever, therefore, would exist in our pas- sage, even if we should actually understand, with Bertholdt, a bodily presence of Daniel in Susa ; but it may be abundantly shown farther, that Daniel was at Susa only in the same manner as Ezekiel, in the visions of God, was at Jerusalem, viii. 3 ; xl. 2 ; as Theodoret, Aben Ezra, Calvin, Ch. B. Miciiaelis, and many other interpreters have assumed. In favour of this view we mention, 1 . That the object for which Daniel feels himself trans- ported to Susa in particular, strikes us most clearly at a glance. Susa was the future metropolis of the kingdom which the pro- phecy concerned. " Susa was anciently the capital of the Per- sians : when, therefore, he is being taught the destruction of the ]^ersian kingdom, he necessarily imagines the vision to take place c2 , d;»(«yvaiws tp (Ktitn] rrj ttoXh coKtT fiXi- REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 87 Shusban had not, at that time, any palace, is, first of all, not sup- ported by any historical testimony. For the passage adduced from Pliny cannot be regarded as such. He says, " in Susiana est vettis regia Persarum, Susa, a Dario Hijstaspisjilio con- dita." He asserts, not that the palace alone, but that the entire city of Susa, was founded by Darius Hystaspis. But this asser- tion is opposed by the unanimous testimony of all oriental (comp. Heebelot, hihl. Orient, s. v- Sons, p. 829) and Greek writers, who assign the building of the city of Susa to the earliest anti- quity. Strabo mentions, p. 1058, as its founder, Tithonus, father of Memnon, and adduces, among the reasons which led the Per- sian kings to exalt the city to be their residence, its magnitude and splendour. Pliny, then, at all events, if his testimony has a general foundation of truth, is chargeable with confounding the extension and embellishment of the city with its first erection. The assertion that Susa had no palace in it before the time of Darius Hystaspis is, however, not merely groundless, but it may also be refuted by distinct historical proofs. Shuslian, the capi- tal of Elam, must have had a palace in it, from the mere fact, that it had kings of its own from Abraham's time downwards, comp. Gen. xiv. 1. Herodotus (v. 54), Strabo, 1. c, and Stephanus of Byzantium, expressly mention this palace, and say that it bore, from its founder, the name ra Me/nvoveta, and remained till the Persians became dominant. Cyrus, who, ac- cording to the testimony of Xenophon, used to pass the three spring months at Susa (comp. Hoeck, veter. Medice et Persia monumenta, p. 92), must, it would seem, have found a palace already existing there. c. Just as imaginary is the assertion, that the name Susa was first given by Darius Hystaspis to the palace, and that it passed from that to the city. This assumption, in the first place, finds no support in the appellation itself Bertholdt's assertion is incorrect, that it refers to the beauty of the buildings ; according to Athen.eus and Stephanus of Byzantium (in Hoeck, 1. c. p. 90, and more fully in Bochart, Gcogr. Sac. p. 751), the city received its name from the quantity of lilies growing in the neigh- bourhood. This assertion is just as little supported by saving, that the city, in ancient times, bore the name of Memnon's city ; to the palace only the name " Memnon's palace" is given by the 08 THE OKNUINENESS Or DANIEL. writers quoted (comp. also Herodot. v. C3) ; but here, as Gese- Nius also allows, the question is about the city. The name Me/i- vovLov darv in Herodotus, C. 51, is only an appellative — Hero- dotus has, in the same passage, as a nomen propriiim, Susa. Of a change in the name oi" the city, in the time of J)arius Hystaspis, not only is tlierc not a syllable of mention in any single writer, butXENOPHON, Ci/rop. viii. 6, 22, as well as Herodotus, testifies to the existence of the name Susa in ancient times. Add to this, that the assertion that the name Shushan was first invented by Darius Hystaspis, is founded upon an hypothesis already shown to be groundless, that of his being the founder of the city or the palace ; and that, assuming the coiTectness of this, it would surely be necessary, as in other similar changes of name, to point out a reference in the name to the person of him that gave it. Thus, in all this argumentation, Bertholdt's oleum et opera are tlirown away. II. Among tlie instances of historical incorrectness is mentioned, farther, the description of the den of lions in chap, G, which is alleged to be in decided contradiction to what we otherwise know of lion-dens. Bertpioldt, Comm. ii. 397, ff., now lays little stress on this, (comp., however, i. p. 74) ; but De Wette goes so far in his ridiculous arrogance, as to call the representation of the lions' den a ridiculous one. Concerning the construction of the Chaldean or Medo-Persian lion-dens, we have not the slightest information from other sources ; all that we possess, is only a single description of lion-dens of quite another land, and quite another period, in Host's Nachrichten von Maroko tind Fes, S. 77 and 290, abridged in Jahn's Archaolof/ie, ii. 2, p. 355, and copied out at length in Rosen m. A. und N. Morf/enl. iv. Nr. J 084, This agrees with our description in the most essen- tial features, ('.(/., that the receptacles for the lions were under ground, and that persons condemned to death were thrown down into them. Nay, exactly considered, no diflerence whatever can be detected between the two. For, the assertion that in our pas- sage a very ntirrow opening is ascribed to the lions' den, just as in vessels terminating in a point above, rests merely on the fact, that, according to ver. 17, it was closed by a stone laid upon it above. But we must here imagine a large flat stone, which, ns jn graves (comp. Jaiin, Arcluiol. i. 2, § 213), scr\ed for a door UKPLY TO OBJECTIONS. Jj'J III. In the same arbitrary maimer, anotlier historical error is assumed—" According to chap, v, 11, 13, 18, 22, Belshazzar (Nahonned), who, according to profane historians, is the fourth successor of Nebuchadnezzar, is his son. This could not have been said by Daniel, who must have been perfectly well acquaint- ed with Nebuchadnezzar's family." Bertholdt, Comm. i. 35 ; Bleek, p. 270; Kirms, p. U. It is generally allowed that =« frequently signifies ancestors in general, and 15, or "?, descendants, and especially grandchildren (comp. Gesen., The.s. p. C, and 216.) Belshazzar was probably a son of Evilmerodach, and grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, (comp. the evidence in Eosen- MULLER, Alterthumsk, i. 2, p. 89.) This designation, then, in itself, gives no countenance to the supposition that the author took Belshazzar for a son of Nebuchadnezzar. But, objects Bleek, if the author had not done this, he w^ould in ver. 11, at the very outset, where we read " and in the time of thy ftither wisdom was found in him," have expressly added the name of Nebuchadnezzar. With far greater propriety might we conclude, because, in the words immediately folk)wiijg, " thy father" is more exactly defined by " the king Nebuchadnezzar," that the queen or the author expressly distinguished Nebuchadnezzar from the proper father of Belshazzar. But a reason can very well be given, why the queen does not in the first breath give this more accu- rate definition. The queen who here comes from her chamber into the banqueting hall was not, as Bertholdt 1. c. p. 3G6» assumes, the wife of Belshazzar -for his wives were, according to ver. 2, present in the hall — but the queen dowager, the wife of Evilmerodach ; comp. the proof farther on. When she Avas speaking of events as having transpired in the time of Belshazzar's father, she might reasonably suppose that he would not think of the insignificant Evilmerodach, who, according to the testimonv of Berosus in Josephus, reigned only two years, but of the famous, celebrated Nebuchadnezzar. — The diflerence of the names Bel- shazzar and Nahonned, to which Bleek farther refers, is tlieless capable of proving anything, inasmuch as both, like the names in general of the ancient kings of the East, are rather surnames than proper names — Belshazzar from the god Bel (Ges. thes. p. 226), Nahonned from the god Nebo (GES.y erepov ^arot1iKatiE istic sunt a Babyloniis anno jam .lojakimi quarto. Turn vero etiam Carchemisum mox cepit Nebucadnezar, et in.Iudfetim.cujus rex eratNeclia- oniR amicus et tributnrius, veuit anno illo i|Uurto jam ad fiuem vergenle. ' I. r. p 430. HE PLY TO OBJECTIONS. J 7 Phoenicia." * 'Z. " From Jer. xxxvi. 9. 29, it incontestibly appears that Nebuchaduezzar, even in the fifth year of the reign of Jehoialdm, had not yet come to Jerusalem." But we shall presently see, that in this passage there is contained a pretty sig- nificant reference to a taking of Jerusalem already past. That such an event had not occurred, is not once said ; and the fact that the e/i/ire destruction of the state and devastation of the land are announced as still future, which was really the case, affords no intimation whatever that it had not. " We are to consider the prophet as intending to remind them, that they were not to regard the evils which he had, by divine command, warned them to expect from Nebuchadnezzar, as at an end, simply because Nebu- chadnezzar had already invaded Judea, and, altliough he had car- ried off many captives and spoils, had left the king still in posses- sion of his authority ; for that he would come again, and bring total desolation on the land."t Another prophecy of Jeremiah, chap. XXV., to which appeal is also made, was, like that in chap, xlvi., delivered immediately before the invasion of Judea that occurred during this expedition, and by that event was incipiently fulfilled. 3. " Josephus expressly says that Nebuchadnezzar, in this expe- dition, did not even enter Palestine." But this testimony of Josephus, Arch. x. 6, I {hia^a<; Se rov Ev(ppdr7)v 6 ^a/3v\.a)VL0v Ba/3uXaii/ia)i//3as, oTt Koi Tijv "Slvpiav Kal tiju i>otviKijv UTraarav kKtivoi KaTicrTpt.\lfaTo. + Perizonius, 1. c. p. 445 — " Ratio biijus prophetiae est, quasi proplieta voluisset ilieere : non esse, quod se defiiuctos jam putent malis, quae a Nebucaduezare ipsis expec- tanda jussu Dei denuutiaverat, siquidem Nebueadnezar jam venisset in .Judeeam et abductis licet aliquot captivis et spoliis regem tamen in regno reliquisset; nam ventu- rum etiam deiuceps et terrnm plane perditurum." IB THE GENUINENESS OF KANIKL. the assumption, that Nebuchadnezzar's invasion affected Judea also.* On the other hand, apart from the probabihty of the thing, even if it could not be corroborated by direct historical evidence (Perizonius 1. c. p. 439, " At (ji/are qi/tcso Jiidwam reliquisset intactam, qua; tunc erat arnica et trihularia Aegypto et in recta via ferente in Aeyyptuni sita ?"), the fact is supported bv the followins: reasons: — 1. Berosus mentions among tlie nations from whom NebuchaJnezzar carried away captives to Babylon, the Jews, and, indeed, he mentions them first (/cat Tov AiyvTTTov idvoiv). Bertholdt, p. 107, is ready here with the expedient, that Bf.rosus no doubt confounded Jews with inhabitants of the former kingdom of the ten tribes. But it can easily be seen that this assumption is quite arbitraiy. Such a confusion is the less supposable, as the land of the ten tribes was then in possession of foreign heathen colonists from Babylon, Cutha, &c., who had notliing in common with the Jews, and whose deportation by Nebuchadnezzar into their former countiy is by no means probable; comp. Jahn Arch. ii. 1, § -10. This is to be regarded as the principal ai-guraent, and one which of it- self alone contains a full sufficiency of proof. Besides this there is a second testimony of a profane author, that of Alexander Poly- histor, in a fragment contained only in the Armenian chronicle of Eiisebius (t. i. p. 45) ; he speaks of the conquest of Judea, as connected with the conquest of Syria and Pha-nicia — " Deinde rey- navit Nabucudrossurus annus 43 et coniractis copiis rcniens captivox duxit Judteos et Phoinices ac Si/ros." 2. In 2 Kings xxiv. 1 , mention is made of an expedition of Nebuchadnezzar against Judea, in which Jehoiakim became subject to him. To tliis expedition the passage also in 2 Chron. xxxti. 6 must refer. "Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon." For in the second expedition, in the eleventh year of Jehoiakim, this king, • ScnLossEK, too, prnnts this ( fchersirht, i. p. 110) — " Tlic .lews Imd to pay n lieavy tux to the I'.pyptiiiii kin^', by rectivinj,' a kiiiK Ht liis hnnds, and remained tlie vassals of Kpyiit tiutil Nebucha«liiezzar defeated the Egyptian king on the Pluphrotes (0(»l) in n decisive hutth-, and tlitn hastened thronprli Syria to I'liltstine, where tlie king of the .lews did him homage." In what follows there ore a niiiltitude of most palpable errors ; but it is not within onr present scope to point them out. ]{EI'LY TO OBJECTIONS. 49 as Jeremiali predicts, chap. xxii. 4^, and as is expressly related in 2 Kings xxiv. 2, was immediately put to death in Jerusalem. Now, in the Chronicles, it is true, mention is made only of the intention of carrying him away to Babylon, not of the fulfilment of that intention ; but this unfulfilled jDlan could only be men- tioned to show how severely the divine retribution fell upon him ; had he been put to death on the spot, we cannot see why the intended deportation is mentioned. The fact that on this suppo- sition the second expedition, the more important one as afi'ecting Judea, is not at all spoken of in the Chronicles, can afi'ord no ground for rejecting it, if we consider the great brevity and incom- pleteness of the information contained there regarding the later times of the Jewish poHty (comp. Bertholdt, p. 174). It is thus historically certain, that, before the invasion in the eleventh year of Jehoiakim, Judea was once conquered by the Babylonians. Indeed history tells of no other expedition of Nebuchadnezzar' than that before us ; nay, according to Berosus, Nebuchadnezzar employed himself most zealously, during some years after his accession to the throne, in fortifying and embellishing the city, and in other internal arrangements. Justly, therefore, do we find in the two passages of the historical books a confirmation of the account of Berosus. 3. Of less weight, but not altogether unim- portant, provided it be taken together with the other proofs, is the passage in Jerem. xxxvi. 9. According to this, a public fast was appointed in Jerusalem, in the fifth year of Jehoiakim, in the ninth month. From analogy (comp. Zech. viii. 19, and as to later times Reland Antiqq. ss. iv., 10) it is probable that this fast was held on the anniversary of the taking of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans, which, accordingly, would have taken place in the ninth month of the fourth year. To this captui'e of Jerusalem, then, our passage relates. Two arguments more are alleged against this, which, however, on nearer inspection, appear of no value. 1 . From the account of Berosus, Nebuchadnezzar undertook this expedition in the lifetime of his father, and consequently before he succeeded to the throne ; but here not only the name of king is attributed to Nebuchadnezzar, but the full exercise of the kingly prerogative, as, e.g., that he brought the vessels of the temple into the treasure-house of his god, comp. Ch. Ben. Michaelis, 1. c. p. 12. But as regards D 50 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. the complete exercise of kingly authority, the proofs of it, among which must not he reckoned the orders in reference to the instruc- tion of Daniel and his companions, tirst make their appearance at the time of the return of Nehuchadnezzar to liahylon, when, according to the testimony of Beuosus, his father was now dead, and the government in his own hands. Thus there remains only the title of king for consideration. Now, if we assume, with Geieii, that this is here given to Nehuchadnezzar y;tr aHliripa- tiouem, " and tliat, heeause when Daniel wrote Nehuchadnezzar was really king ;'"* or, with others (comp. Schlosseu, Wcltt/escli, i. p. 11), that Nehuchadnezzar, hefore the expedition, was asso- ciated in the co-regency hy his aged and infirm father, a thing probahle in itself, and confirmed hy Jer. xlvi. 1 (vid. infra), and which, perhaps, also in the words of Bekosus, " he conferred on liis son Nehuchadnezzar, who had attained the age of manhood, some share of the govcrnment,"t has an express historical warrant — ^in any case, it can be shown, with certainty, fi'om our hook, that its author, just as Berosus, places the beginning of Nebuchad- nezzar's campaign in the reign of his father, and at least a year either before his reigning at all, or before his reigning solely. According to eh. ii. 1, Daniel, in the fn'coiid year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, showed him a dream, when he had been in- structed in the learning of the Chaldeans three years. This proves clearly, that, at the time of the conquest of Jerusalem, the highest dignity was not yet in the possession of Nebuchadnezzar, and that the reckoning was still made according to the years of his father's reign. 2. It is alleged, that, according to our ])assage, Jerusalem was taken as early as the third year of Jehoiakim, whilst, according to Jeremiah, the battle of Carchcmish did not occur till the fourth year (comp. supra, p. 43.) But this objec- tion vanishes as soon as we translate ch. i. 1, " In the third year of king Jehoiakim, Nebuchadnezzar the king set out to Jerusa- lem," &c. The verb k's occurs just in the same manner Jon. i. ,'3, o-'s-n nxa n-ss, " a vessel going to Tai'shish." See other ex- amples in Gesenius, then., and in Winer, s. v. J • " Idque <(), quod cum Daniel s(ril)mt, Nobm-adnrzar rix juin esset." + /s Svvnfiiuit. I Siuiilm-ly Pkrizonius, 1. c. p. 480, "Trrtio .lojakimi nnno Neb. profecUim contra Acgjptios ct coruin socios stuluanius nccissc est. Eo itnquc nnno cwpit hoc bellum inovf-ri /■/ t/iiiisi iniliiiiii fit-ri vniimJi in Jiuhciim." KEPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 51 It is worthy of remark, and serves for a surprising confirmation of our view, that, according to it, for every single circumstance in ver. 1-3, a histoiical confirmation can be brought. Jehoialdm is given into the hand of the king of Babylon — according to the Books of Kings he becomes subject to him — according to the Chronicles he is bound with chains ; Nebuchadnezzar takes away part of the temple furniture, and brings it into the house of his god — Chronicles, " Also Nebuchadnezzar brought a part of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon, and put them in his palace." Berosus, " With the spoils of the war he magnificently adorned the temple of Belus, and the other (great edifices)" &c.; * Nebuchadnezzar gives command, out of a larger number of captives to select some for his own service — according to Beeo- sus Jewish captives among the rest are carried off, and Nebu- chadnezzar gives command on his return to appoint for them, as well as the others, suitable places of residence in Babylonia. We leave it to every reader to consider on which supposition this accu- rate historical knowledge is the more easily to be explained — that Daniel was the writer, or that it was the work of a Jew in the unhistorical Maccabean age. It now only remains for us to reconcile our passage with Jere- miah XXV. 1. This appears at the first glance to be utterly im- possible. For there the beginning of Nebuchadnezzar's reign seems to be placed in the fourth year of Jehoiakim. The ques- tion arises, then, what is to be understood by the first year of Nebuchadnezzar, whether the first of his monarchy, or the first of his co-regency ? On the first supposition we are met by an inexplicable difficulty. It would make Nebuchadnezzar's monar- chy to begin before the battle of Carchemish, and before the con- quest of Jerusalem. The three years' instruction of Daniel and his companions cannot have begun till after that; and yet it was completed by the second year of Nebuchadnezzar's monarchy. (" Tet us take another method of finding out the time of Nabopo- lassar's death. This is determined by the thirty-seventh year of Jeconiah, spoken of as agreeing with the last of Nebuchadnezzar. For, if we go back through those thirty-seven years, adding the * Auxos ^E viro Tfoi; ek tov voXifiov \ac^i>pwv to t-etou TiriXov Upov kuI rh Xoiiric KOa-fxnmii (l)i\oTi/M(o^, k.t.X. D 2 02 Till-: CJKNUINKNESS OF DANIEL. last six of Jehoiakira, who reigned eleven years in all, we shall have in the sixth of Jehoiakiin the first of the forty-three years which are alwavs aserihcd bv the Babylonians to Nebuchadnez- zar. **) The second supposition has not only probability in its favour, ("The son appears to have administered the aflairs of the kingdom in connexion with his father ; so that, whenever that united govemment may have begun, the Scriptures reckon the years of Nebuchadnezzar from that time. For it mattered not to the Jews whether he reigned alone or with his father ; since their only care was about the calamity he was bringing upon them ; nor did they consider whether he oppressed them in his own or his father's name,"t) but also the testimony of Berosus, accord- ing to whom all Syria and Phojnicia was conquered under Nabo- polassar, and Nebuchadnezzai" took the govenimentinto his hands not until he had finished the whole campaign, and was returned to Babylon. " He took into his own hands the affairs of state, which had been managed by Chaldeans, and the royal prerogative which had been guarded by the chief of them, ha^^ng obtained the whole of his father's dominions," &c.;|: It is not to be urged as an objection, that in Dan. ii. 1, the second year of Nebuchad- nezzar is the second of his monarchy ; to an author living in Ba- bylonia tliis reckoning was natural, to one living in.Tudoa (comp. p. 51) the other rather ; there is also found a diflerence '>f c\- ♦ Another difliculty too must be added. According to Jeremioli Hi. 'M, Nebiicliad- ui'zznr died in tlic tliirty-seventh veiir of .lernniab. This wonhl make it irapossiblo that he sliuiihl liiivf bet,''uu liis reign in the fourth yeiir of .leboiakini. t'onii). Pebi- zoNivs, ]. c., p. 483 — " Verum faciamns haec missa et iuvestigemns aliis ratiouibus mortem Nabopola.ssai'is. Ostendit nobis earn Trijjesimns et Septimus illo .lechonjae annus cum nUinio Nfbueadnezaris concun°ens. Ilinc cnim si retro ri'^rrcdiaunir per illos 37. et 8CX insuper ultimos .(ojakinii.ijui XI. rcgnavit in universum, hiibebinins in sexto Jojakimi jirimum 48. annorum, (|ui n Bab_vh)niis conblanter iribnunturNebTirnd- nezari." + LEmpereur, on Joseph .lach. p. 2U. — " Itaijue cum patreiilius regni negotiaad- ministrasse omninn videtnr; ergo qnodrnn(iue istins conjuncti imperii fiierit initium. ab eo etiam Nebucadnezaris annos scriptura numerat. (^nia sive sohis, sive cum pa- tre regnaret, .ludarisperinde erat; qnoniam ijiFos tiintum sollicitos habuit ciUamitiLs, quae ab illo iiiftnbatur ; ner in en digerimen observabant, sive suo, sive patris nomine ipsos (ijiprimi Ti-I." I irapaXaftwv ii Ta irfn'iyfXitTa iioiKov/xiva i/ird \ii\iaitoi> Kui SiaTtipovnivii' TT/f liita'Xtiav vwd tow fiiXTiirrov rii'TJoi', Kxpitvirai oXoKXt'ifiov t»)v -iraTptKijv I'fiX'l^ K. T. X. REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. O-'J pressiou between the two passages, which is perhaps not without its significance. Comp. Eabbi Alschech in L'Empereuk onii. 1 . On this supposition, then, the difficulty in reference to ch. i. 5, compared with ii. 1, disappears; hut another seems to remain : how can Nebuchadnezzar in the third year begin the expedition in which Jerusalem was taken, whereas, according to Jeremiah, he did not till the fourth year enter on the co-regency, with which the beginning of the expedition coincides ? But this diffi- culty disappears on a nearer inspection of the passage in Jere- miah. He does not say that Nebuchadnezzar began his reign in the fourth year of Jehoiakira ; but only that the fourth year of Jehoiakim was the first of Nebuchadnezzar. But since we cannot conceive that the years of their respective reigns mentioned be- gan on the same day, the accounts of Daniel and Jeremiah are very easily reconciled, by supposing that the first year of Nebu- chadnezzar began towards the end of the third year of Jehoiakim, and that this was really the case we have earlier attempted to shew. SECT. IX. CONTRADICTIONS. " There are found in the Book of Daniel some totally irrecon- cileable contradictions." Bertholdt has particulai-ly laboured to shew this, Comm. i. 51, S ; Eittl. 1545, next to the mainten- ance of his hypothesis of a pluraUty of authors, which, however, would of itself prove that the book was not genuine. More re- cently the force of this argument has been, even by several oppo- sers of the genuineness, as De Wette, Bleek, and Kirms, if not wholly denied, yet doubted and little insisted on. Nor could this be otherwise, since they agree with its defenders in main- taining the oneness of authorship. The solution of the contra- dictious is, therefore, just as obligatory on them as on the others. For it is certainly improbable that the supposed pseudo-Daniel, to whom we cannot refuse the credit of the highest s'if/acH>/, without imputing to the countless multitude of persons who allow- ed themaolves to be deceived by him, an iiijinite dulness; who, in his earher narrations, and even, it is alleged, in the mention of ap- parently most insignificant accessory circumstances, always pre- 54 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. paved the way for what was to follow ; for example, mentioued in chap, i., the caiTying away of the sacred tcmple-fumiturc by Ne- buchadnezzar, with an eye to the account given chap. v. (comp. Bleek, p. 274); and throughout pursued a definite purpose — it is quite improbable that such a man should not have guarded against the grossest, most evident contradictions. Such a mix- ture of the greatest dulness and sagacity would be an inexpH- cable psychological enigma, and a single instance of gross and prima facie contradiction would sufiBce to refute at once the defenders of the genuineness, and the defenders of the oneness. But the weakness of this ground is immediately appai'ent, when we look more narrowly at the several assumed contradictions. These are, besides that grand contradiction between chap. i. and ii., already examined, the following : I. " According to chap. i. 21, Daniel lived only till the first year of the reign of Cyrus. According to ch. j^l, he had, and described, a remarkable vision as late as the f\st year of the reign of this king." Bertholdt, 1. c, Giuesinger, p. 39. This con- tradiction can be the less admitted by the defenders of the unHij, who are at the same time opponents of the f/enuineness, because it can-ies with it another also between ch. i. 21 andvi. 28, where I it is said, that Daniel, not only under Darius the Mede, but also under Cyrus, occupied high official stations, which leads to the inference of a longer life of Daniel under Cyrus. De Wette, p. 3G7, contents himself merely witli the remark, that the contradic- tion may be removed by a solution not of a forced character. Bleek observes, p. 212, that the supposition of a contradiction rests upon an uncertain, probably false, interpretation of the first passage ; but then, p. 283, by the interpretation wliich he recom- mends, unwittingly brings forward a contradiction at least as gi-eat. According to him, the author wished to express, not that Daniel lived till the first year of Cyrus, but that he remained up to that time in such circumstances in Babylon, and then with the rest of the exiles returned to Palestine. This interpretation brings the passage, i. 21, into inexplicable contradiction with both vi. 28 and X. 4, according to which, Daniel, in the third year of Cyrus, had a remarkable vision on the Tigris. If it should be said tliat Da- niel was there only in spirit, as ch. viii. on the Ulai, for which, however, no distinct ground can be adduced as in that instance, REPLY TO OBJECTIONS, 55 and against which ver. 7 seems to speak, yet even then his find- ing himself transported thither in spirit would prove that he was residing in Babylonia. For no reason appears in the contents of the prophecy for a transportation from Palestine to the Tigris. There is, then, in this passage a distinct intimation, that, accord- ing to the view of the author, Daniel was not, in the third year of Cyrus, living in Palestine. It must be added, that this explnna- tion is totally unjustifiable on philological grounds. For " in these circumstances in Babylon " is quite an arbitrary supplement, and altogether inadmissible in the full explicit style of our book. Let the reader judge whether J. D. Michaelis is more correct, who maintains that ^aaa has been omitted ! We must, therefore, look about for another explanation ; and this offers itself to us readily and naturally. We explain : Daniel continued to, or lived to see, the first year of Cyrus ; not, he lived till the first year of Cyrus ; for the assertion of Bertholdt is incorrect, that n-'n may stand irrecisehj for n-^n, and does so stand here. By this remark, then, the author means, either simply to give a general definition of time — Daniel not only lived through the whole time of the duration of the Chaldean monarchy, but reached even the beginning of the reign of Cyrus — or, which is more probable, he names the first year of Cyrus with reference to the fact, that in tliis year the liberation of the Israelites took place, Ezrai. 1, for wliich, accord ing to ch. ix., Daniel had so panted, and of which to be even a witness was to him a matter of great joy. According to the lat- ter supposition, this verse would stand thus in relation to ver. 1 , fi'. : Daniel, who was brought to Babylon in the first deportation, saw hkewise the happy liberation and restoration of his people. But we must here notice the objection which might bo raised against this interpretation, from the assertion of some recent gram- marians (EwALD, Gram, p, 004 ; Winer, lex. s. v. against Ge- SENius, Lehrff. p. 817 ; and De Wette on Ps. ex. 1), that the particle -^'J never refers to time after the limited period mentioned. We fully agree with these grammarians, that ns or i'*s ly, ■'s ~j, never, grammatically and taken by itself, includes et etianij^ostea, but always extends only to the terminus ad quern, including that terminus. But not less certain is it, that verv often a terminus ad queni is mentioned, which is not the most extreme one, but only one of peculiar importance in a certain respect, so that wluit ;■)() THK GENUINENESS OF DANIKI.. lies beyond is left unnoticed. This arises so much from the na- ture of the case, that it is found, and must be found, in all languages. Who thinks, for instance, in German, that everybody who is said to have lived to see his jubilee must necessarily have died in the same year ? or that when we bid a person " farewell" till we meet again, we wish him ill for the after time ? In Hebrew occur pas- sages open to this remark, as Jerem. i. 3, where it is said that Jeremiah prophesied under the kings Josiah, Jehoiakim, and till the end, nn -ly, of the eleventh year of Zedekiah. Here it is just as arbitrary, with several expositors, to translate on ly " till the end and farther on," as with Ewald, without anv farther rea- son, to maintain that the superscription does not extend to the entire collection of the prophecies of Jeremiah. With the de- struction of the state the prophetic agency of Jeremiah did not terminate, but it became much more insignificant and uninfluen- tial. The author of the superscription, then, keeps this after-pe- riod quite out of sight, to which it is quite true that certain pieces in the collection belong; comp. besides, Gen. xlix. 10 {Christol. I. i. p. 79) ; Exod. xv. IG ; Ps. cxii. 8. By these remarks the proposed explanation of our passage appeals fully justified, and every pretence of contradiction is removed. II. " According to chap. ii. 48, 49, Daniel was, in the time of Nebuchadnezzar, chief president of the order of magicians, and a very distinguished person at court; according to chap. v. 14, on the contrary, under the reign of Belshazzar, nobody at the court any longer knows this but the queen, and nobody besides at the court seems to know him." That this assumed contradic- tion is easy to remove, even De Wette and Bleek observe. The assumption rests on the false supposition, that the book must necessarily contain a complete chronicle of Daniel's life, whereas the author has manifestly proposed to himself only a record of what was important in reference to rehgion, and touches upon all the rest only so ftir as it is inevitably necessary for the under- standing of that. The two j)assages are in perfect agreement, if we only assume, what the author has omitted distinctly to state, but what appears of itself from the second passage, that Daniel, although, as may be gathered from viii. 27, he transacted certain royal business even in the time of Belshazzai", yet after the death of Nebuchadnezzar was, from a variety of assignable causes, so KKPLV TO OBJECTIONS. 57 far removed again into obscurity (comp. Berth, p. 0, where this is mentioned in contradiction to what has been just adduced), that he was personally unknown to Belshazzar, who from his character probably had no desire to search out people like Daniel. That he was unknown to all the rest at the court, is in the second passage neither said nor hinted at. III. With the same facility another pretended contradiction maybe reconciled. " How can Nebuchadnezzar, chap. iii. 14, be represented as never having heard that the Jewish nation adored a divinity of its own, whilst, according to ii. 47, he was already a believer in the God of the Jews ?" Berth. Comm. i. p. 05. Nebuchadnezzar says nothing in the former passage from which it can be concluded that he did not know" the God of Israel, but he merely challenges him with the arrogance of a Sennacherib, and in reliance on the superior power of his idols. The contradiction, which seems to he between it and ii. 47, be- longs not to the author, but to Nebuchadnezzar, who was guilty of it in common with all natural men. The faith there expressed in the superior power of the God of Israel, not, be it well observed, in his sole supremacy, had no root in his soul, but it was wrung from him only by a single and peculiarly mighty manifestation of his power. It disappeared, therefore, so soon as the external display had by time lost its impression. We perceive the same thing, only in a still stronger degree, in the case of Pharaoh. Here is another proof how peculiarly deficient rationalism is in the more profound psychology, as we have had occasion several times already to observe. IV. But this arbitrary mode of deahng is most palpable in the last contradiction assumed. " In chap ii. and iii. the character of Nebuchadnezzar is represented quite otherwise than in chap, iv. Here he appears as a gentle, yieldiug, and quite reasonable man ; there as a frantic and cruel tyrant." Berth, p. 72. It is true, Nebuchadnezzar appears in chap. ii. 3, as an oriental despot, but at the same time as one whose mind is not resolutely closed against the truth when it comes to him in a palpable way ; in chap. iv. quite the same man meets us, only that by a more power- ful display of the truth than on former occasions, he is more pro- foundly and deeply humbled. Indeed, in ver. 30, his proud arro- gance is adduced as the reason why the madness was sent upon 58 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. him by God I — TJiesc remarks will, we may hope, suffice to make the argument derived from the contradictions disappeai- for ever from the list of arguments against the authenticity of Daniel. SEC. X. IMPROBABLE AND SUSPICIOUS STATEMENTS. There occur in the historical part of the hook a multitude of improbable, and on many grounds suspicious, narratives." Here it is necessary, on account of the great weiglit commonly assigned by'the opponents of the genuineness to this argument, that we should go scrutinizingly through all that has been found offensive in the several chapters, taking them in their order. Chap. I. — Here we are met at the very outset by an argument which, if it should be found substantiated by proof, would for ever decide the controversy. It is directed against nothing less than the existence of a Daniel at the time of the captivity. " By the way and manner in which Daniel here makes his appearance, we may surely regard it as certain that the author intended the same Daniel who occurs in Ezekiel. This prophet mentions Daniel in two passages. Chap. xiv. 14-20, he names him along with Noah and Job as well-known examples of rectitude ; chap, xxviii. 3, he says, in order to depict the pride of the king of Tyre in the strongest colours, that he regards himself as wiser than Daniel. In both passages it is supposed that ])auiel is sufficiently known to all as a pattern of wisdom and rectitude. In both pas- sages we are bound far rather to suppose that Ezekiel referred to a celebrated man of a former age, than to a eotemporai-y. l^aniel must, according to the dates contained in the book, have been still very young, at least when the first prophecy was spoken. How could Ezekiel suppose that the name of Daniel and the fame of his wisdom were known even to the distant king of Tyre ? If, then, it is proved that the Daniel mentioned in Ezekiel is cither a person of a far earlier age distinguished for wisdom and piety, or, like Job, only a poetical character, then is our book shown to have no ground or Ibnudation whatever as liistory."' This argument, which may be regarded as the very summit of ar- bitrary criticism in the researches on llic anlhenticitv of ])aniel. REPLV TO OBJECTIONS. 69 was prepared by Bernstein {uher das Buck Hiob, in the Aita- lecta of Keil and Tzschirner, i. 3, p. 10), who, from the im- probabihty that the Daniel living at the time of the captivity should be brought forward in such a way by Ezekiel, inferred that either the entire passages of Ezekiel were not genuine, or at least the references to Daniel were of later introduction. Bleek (1. c. p. 284), whom De Wette {Eiiil. p. 3C1) follows, as he does throughout his researches on Daniel, borroAved the idea from Beknstein, but drew from it another inference, the one we have mentioned. The other opponents of the genuineness could not presume so far. Bertholdt {Comm. i. p. 7; Euil. p. 1500), says that the testimony of Ezekiel incontestibly shows, that Da- niel actually, and indeed in his earlier years, occupied a very dis- tinguished position in the court of Babylon, and by his under- standing had already earned for himself a high and extensive re- putation. KiRMS, p. 69, sqq. tries at some length to show the nullity of this hypothesis. We will, first of all, deal with the arguments by which it is attempted to be shown, that the Daniel of Ezekiel cannot be the same who occurs in our book as a cotemporary of his. The first prophecy of Ezekiel in which we find mention of Daniel, falls, on comparison of ch. viii. 1, probably in the sixth year of Zcdekiah, and consequently in the thirteenth or fourteenth after the carry- ing away of Daniel, which took place, as we have shown, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim ; in this prophecy, Daniel is brought forward only as a pattern of rectitude and piety. The second prophecy, which contains the glowing praise of Daniel's wisdom, falls five years later. Now, according to our book, the occurrence which laid the first foundation of Daniel's fame and greatness, took place as early as the second year of the sole reign of Nebu- chadnezzar, and thus about ten years before the first prophecy of Ezekiel. If, then, Daniel had at that time really distinguished himself in the manner related in our book, no reason can be seen why Ezekiel should not speak of him in this manner ; on the contrary, if we take into consideration the circumstances of the times, it appears perfectly natural. The lower the Israelitish people were sunk at the time of the captivity, the more earnestly would their looks be directed towards one of their number, who maintained his attachment to the religion of his fatherland amidst (>0 TllK GENUINENESS OF DANIKL. the mosttryiug aud seductive associations; whose high reputation amongst the heathen people was regarded by the entire nation as a kind of indemnification for the contempt they suffered ; whose miraculous, divinely-wrought achievements were to them a pledge and a type of the deliverance they were one day to experience ; in whom they hoped they saw the instrument of this deliverance as promised hy the prophets ; who even now was able to secure a va- riety of protection to his fellow- countiTmcn ; and wlio for their God, to whom they had been led by misfortune humbly to return, obtained a fresh recognition of his supremacy from the heathens who had liitlierto proudly contemned him, inferring his weakness from the w-eakness of his people. That Ezekiel supposed the fame of Daniel to be known even to the distant king of Tyre is incorrect, although this might well have been the case. The pro- phecies against foreign kings, although ad(h*essed to them, were not destined specially for them, (for the most part they knew no- thing about them), but for the people of the covenant. That Daniel, therefore, in a prophecy addressed to the king of Tyre, is named as a pattern of wisdom, proves notliing more than that he was known as such among the Israelites in the captivity. Fi- nally, the placing of Daniel between Noah and Job, from which JiERNSTETN, 1. c. p. 9, wishes to infer that Daniel must necessa- rily have lived before Job, is explained on the ground, that the mention of Job was not so suitable to the object of Ezekiel as that of Noah and Daniel, inasmuch as the different fate of Job and his children was determined, not, as was required for this object, by their respective piety and ungodliness merely, but only by the greater or less amount of the former ; besides which it must be considered, that the prophet would suppose Noah and Daniel to be better known to his countrymen, and the mention of them would make therefore a greater impression than that of Job. But, supposing such reasons could not bo pointed out, yet nothing would follow from this position of the names, since wc have no warnmt for assuming that Ezekiel would quote the examples in chronological order. Let us now pass on to the positive arguments for the assertion, that the Daniel of Ezekiel lived at the time of the captivity, and is identical with the Dauiel of our book. 1. There is no doubt that Ezekiel not merely named Noah. Daniel, and Job, on the REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. Gl general ground of their being pious men, but that he was deter- mined by some special consideration to name just those, to the omission of Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and others. This conside- ration is better developed by Theodoret than by any other ex- positor, {02)2). "• P- ''^08, Hal.) " If, says Jehovah, I determine to punish a nation for their sins, and they will not repent, they shall obtain no mercy ; nor should they, even if Noah, Job, and Daniel, were among them ; those men should reap the fruits of their own righteousness and be safe, but should not rescue the others from the impending vengeance. The reason wliyhe men- tions these persons is, that the occurrences of their times corres- ponded strikingly with the case in hand. Noah, e.g., lived among an impious generation, but was unable to rescue from the total desolation of the flood those who would not repent ; Daniel like- wise, who lived at the time of the captivity, could not deliver his countrymen, because of their wickedness, from the calamities that were inflicted, but he himself, although taken prisoner, overcame the enemy, and received the submissive homage of those who had enslaved him. Nor, again, did the children of Job derive any advantage from the piety of their father, but he alone escaped from the plot of the foe.''* In this view agree also Jerome in loc. and RosENMULLER, Ez. i. p. 367. The contrast between the pious, who are preserved and raised to happiness, whilst the others are smitten with ruin, is also so expressly marked in the pas- sage, that there can be no doubt of its correctness. Hence, then, there results at least this much with certaintv, that the Daniel of Ezekiel must have sustained about the same position as the Da- niel of our book, and the manner in which Ezekiel introduces him * " tav, 'pi\ariv, dfxapT)i<7av tS'i/os Ko\d(Tai ftovXijSrw, /xBravoia 6i yjprifracrbai fxj'i fiov- Xijirwaiv 6l Ko\a<^6/xtvoL, 6v6e/xia9 Tiu^ovrai <7vyyvwfxi]^, ovdk ii Ncue Kai 'Iw(i kuI Aavii}X tvpcSreitv kv tluTots, dW ovtoi fitv Ttjs diKtiai SiKaioavvii^ Tpvyntrovai tous KapTToi)^, Kal Tf;s cnoTijpiui iiroXavcrovrai, Ikbii/ov^ Sk T>/s kirayofxivi]^ oxjicdfraWd.- ^ovcrt Tifiujpiu^. Tduxtoj/ ok Twv dvSpwu kpLVi)ix6ve.V(rtv, tos Tots kipi^jnivot^ twv kiitu Toiis XjOoj/ous dvTwv yiyovoTOJV Xiav cTvixf3aiv6vT(ov. o, t£ yap Nco£ ki/ ua^jiwv kv- pt^tli ytift-q, uvK Icryy^Ti Tf;s tov KaTaXvaixov -TravwXeSfpias aTraXXd^aL tous /xstu- vo'ui xpt'icraar^ai fxi) SfsXuarai'TCK' Kal 6 Aai/i})\ (oo-auTOJS, kutu tov ttJs aix^J-uXcocrius yivofxivoi Kaipov, Toiii fj.tv dXXov^ Sia ti)v iroXXijv u(Tij3tLav ovk I'jXtuSjtpuxTt tojj/ iTTEl'cxS'tl'TtOU KaKWV, CtUTOSOS KOI OOpvdXlOTO^ yiVOfXiVO^ TWV TToXi/JLLWl' kKpdT1)(7t, KUL Towdv^pU'jroo'KTavTa'ii.Xafttv vttijkoov^. 'Ovdk oItov'Iw^ ok -xdideg t}j9 TovTra-rpo^ £i- Kaiocrxivt)^ dirwvavTo. p.ovo's Sk KpiiTTov tt;? toO ■noX^p.-i'icravTo^ liripovXij^ aTTErjidi'^ii." 62 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. is perfectly intelligible, if the two arc regarded as identical 2. If the Daniel of Ezekiel were a celebrated man of a former pe- riod, how is it to be explained that mention of him occurs for the first time in a prophet living during the captivity ? The very thing which Bleek particularly urges, that J)aniel is introduced as a pattern of rectitude and wisdom, sufficiently known to all, is opposed to his view, in support of whieli he adduces it. For, sup- posing him to have been sufficiently known to all, how then is it to be explained that no writer before the captivity names him? The supposition that so celebrated a man was accidentally passed over, has certainly no probability, especially if we take the second passage into the account, in which Daniel is adduced as a pattern of the highest wisdom, and that too in such a connection, that we can think only of a wisdom announcing itself in important external relations. Of a poetical personage we certainly cannot think, when we look at the celebrity here ascribed to him, and at the manner in which Daniel is named in both passages, and if recourse be had to the case of Job as f\ivouring such an idea, that is supposing something as proved which is not proved. The very passage in Ezekiel otfers the most certain proof against the as- sumption that Job was a merely fictitious poetical person, as would appear also from the fact, that the most strenuous defender of this view, Bernstein, feeling its weight, seeks to free him- self from the difficulty by declaring it spurious or critically cor- rupt. .'3. Even if we grant the s^juriousness of the l^ook of Daniel, yet it is not to be supposed that Daniel did not live, on the whole, in the circumstances and at the time assigned in the book. The author could of course have no other object in his imposture than to gain currency for his work by means of a universally honoured name, and he would have acted very unsagaciously if he had se- parated the person, whose pait he was playing, from the circum- stances and the time to which the prevailing tradition assigned him.* • Thisis acknowlcilKPd in another place by Bleek himself (p. 2.'J2)— ^' In order, therefore, to obtain nnioii)^ liis people giriitir confidfiicf in his consolatory views, tiiathe nilglit tliiis eontrihute to slrfn;,'tlieu and confirm tlieni in faitlifiil, steadfast con- tinuance in tlie service of .leliovaii, lie chose tlie person of a man wlio ut tliat time must iiiitlotihlcdli/ have been regarded as a distinguished prophet living during tlic captivity."' KEFLV TO OBJECTIONS. 63 Another argument likewise propounded by Bleek (p. 280), and approved by De Wette, is noticed by us merely to shew how prejudice can lead persons to attribute the force of proof to that which is of itself most unconvincing. "Daniel, Hananiah, Mi- shael, and Azariah, occur as names of persons in the age of Ezra (Nehem. x. G, 23 ; viii. 4.) Now, as Daniel and Mishael are names elsewhere very rarely occurring, it is probable that the author bor- rowed the names of the four Jewish youths from these four men." It is scarcely worth the trouble seriously to reply to such an argu- ment. Hananiah and Azariah are among the very commonest names ; the name Daniel must be left quite out of the account, because, forsooth, as is maintained, p. 287, the author borrowed it from Ezekiel, and a double borrowing surely cannot be admit- ted in one and the same name ; there remains, then, only the name Mishael to account for, which occurs only in Exod. vi. 22, and Levit. x. 4, from which it by no means follows that it was rare, but only that few persons of this name were particularly dis- tinguished. If, moreover, we were to infer any thing at all fi'om this similarity of names, we should certainly be more justified to take the fact that the names in our book appear in use in the ad- jacent period, as a confirmation of the historical truth of the nar- rative. But the defenders of the genuineness do not need such arguments. Let us pass on now fi'om the objections of Bleek against the first chapter to those of Beetholdt. " It is in itself probable that the young men, with praiseworthy scrupulosity, repudiated the meats and drinks which by the law of Moses were unclean. But what goes beyond that may easily be recognized as fiction. It was the aim of a later age to represent Daniel and his com- panions as patterns of abstinence, even beyond what the law required. They are, therefore, made to refuse altogether the use of flesh food, and to request merely pulse. Wine was not on the whole forbidden by Moses, but what moderation for the four young men to drink only water!" Comm. i. 177. This reasoning is based on the erroneous assumption that Daniel and his associates refused the use of flesh and wine on ascetic grounds. On the contrary, it is plainly enough said, ver. 8, that Daniel would not defile himself with the kimfn meat, and with the wine of his table ; consequently that he renounced, not the use of flesh and wine "l THE GENUINENESS OF DANIKI.. altogether, but only of audi tlcsli uud wine as in his eyes passed for unclean — and it was only between these and the diet chosen by him that his choice lay, if he would not put the courtesy of the chamberlain to too severe a test. The futility of the assump- tion of an ascetic renunciation appears too from x. 3, according . to which Daniel did drink wine when he had come into an inde- pendent condition. Now the question farther is, why Daniel regarded the meat and the wine of the king's table as unclean. For us soon as a suthcient reason for this can be pointed out, the objection at once loses all plausibility. The reason seems to lie not so much in the fact that the Babylonians ate many kinds of food forbidden to the Jews, which of course Daniel was in the habit always of avoiding, as in the fact that the meat of the royal table was very frequently meat offered in sacrifice to idols, and that what was not in this manner rendered unclean could not be separated fi'om the rest. But the eating of idol-food was always regarded by the Jews as a participation in idolatry, and rightly so, since it was so regiu'ded also by the idolaters themselves ; even the Jewish Christians, it is well known, not only held this view, but even went farther (comp., in reference to the later Jews, EiSENMENGER ii. 014, sqq). It was a similar case with wine. The wine of feasts among heathen nations was almost universally consecrated by a libation to their gods. Comp. the passages in LiPSius, 1. iii. antiq. led., and in Geier, p. 58. But, still objects Bleek, p. 275, this scrupulousness seems among the Jews to have arisen prhicipalli/ after the Maccabean age, especially during the time when in the land, and even in the temple, sacrifices were offered to Grecian deities ; comp. 2 Mace. v. 27, where, we are told, it is related of Judas Maccabipus and his attendants, that for this reason (?) they ate only pulse. But even if this passage, raked up without examination, and having no- thing at all to do with the question, were valid as proof, yet surely, from the fact that in the Maccabean times this anxious dread of the taint of idolatry is found, it could not be inferred that it had not existed earlier, and particuliu'ly under the quite similar cir- cumstances of the captivity. This is clearly shown by the pas- sage in Ez. iv. IM, 14, where the prophet predicts to his countrj-- men as a pimishment, that in the captivity they should be com- pelled by the direst necessity to eat unclean food, and even assures REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 65 them, with the protestation of his excessive abhorrence, that un- clean flesh had never come into his mouth. A scrupulosity really well-founded, and not resting merely on arbitrary institutions, would necessarily influence pious theocrats at all times, and espe- cially in the times of the captivity, when the people, warned by calamity, avoided with the most anxious care everything which could be regarded by any one as a participation in idolatry. Bleek farther, p. 275-80, tries to bring our chap, into sus- picion by maintaining that there is manifestly a paraenetic aim, that of reminding the Jews that under similar circumstances, such as those which really existed at the time of the Maccabees, they should act in the same manner. But this parsenetic aim is dis- coverable only in so far as every narrative in the work is at once a lesson and a warning for the present and the future. The pe culiar object of the tale is clearly that only of shewing by an example how stedfastly Daniel and his associates withstood a temptation by which, as Ezekiel foretold, many others were overcome, in order thus to prepare the way and lay a foundation for what is afterwards related of the splendid elevation of Daniel. Were it worth the trouble, it might be easily shown that, allowing such arguments to be valid, none of the writings of the 0. T. were composed till the time of the Maccabees. Chap. II. — On this chap, the objections are not very numer- ous, and still less important. " The pages of ancient history," observes Bertholdt, Co mm. i., p. 192, " would present no greater monster to our abhorrence than Nebuchadnezzar, if he were really capable, at the instigation of so mad a whim, of doom- ing several innocent men to execution. Never has it been believed that expounders of dreams, wdth a sort of omniscience, could even call back dreams which had vanished from the memoi7 of others. It is quite opposed to history to believe Nebuchadnezzar capable of such senseless atrocity." On the contrary, we obsei've, 1 . The assumption of a " mad whim" of Nebuchadnezzar rests only on a false interpretation of ver. 5, adopted by Bertholdt after several old translators and expositors. In that passage Nebuchadnezzar, on the magicians saying, in reply to his demand to have the dream told, that the king must first tell it them, for that they could do nothing more than give its import, says, "^l^ "'?'? »*rj'**?. E 7), in nearly the same manner, although not with the same words, direct the attention of the king from themselves to their God, and also that in both nar- ratives (Gen. xli. 8 ; Dan. ii. 1-3) the verb oyD is used. But, if this is to be regarded as anything more than accidental, we can- not see why Daniel might not have read the Pentateuch as well as the Pseudo- Daniel. CiiAi'. III. — 111 ivgard to this chapter the objections are parti- cularly numerous. We begin with one used by De Weitf. p REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 09 368, and Bleek, p. ^68, which is not only directed against the authorship by Daniel, hut denies that our chapter has any histo- rical foundation whatever. " Such an occurrence as that related in our chapter would necessarily suppose at least an inclination to religious persecution in Nebuchadnezzar, or in the Chaldeans ge- nerally— a feature which did not by any means belong to the character of these people or of these times, so fai- as we otherwise know. Traces of it must necessarily have been preserved to us in other prophets — in Ezekiel, for instance, and Jeremiah." But of a religious persecution no trace is found in our chapter, as even Bertholdt, p. 2G1, has remarked. It is true, the king com- mands the assembled officers, from all the provinces of his king- dom, to adore the statue set up by him ; but he was far from wshing, on that account, to deprive every one of his own religion, as Antiochus Epiphanes afterwards did. He only sought for his gods that acknowledgment which all polytheistic nations freely rendered to the gods of those with whom they mingled, such, for instance, as, according to 2 Kings xvii., those Babylonians who were carried away into the land of Israel thought they must not refuse to the God of Israel ; we can hardly suppose, in his case, such an exact knowledge of the Jewish rehgion, that he should perceive how such an acknowledgment was, to its true votaries, morally impossible. As he acknowledged the God of Israel as a really existing, and, to a certain degree, powerful, being, so he thought the Israelites must do still more in reference to his god, who, as he supposed, had proved himself the mightier of the two by the conquest he had wrought; comp. Is. xxxvi. 19, sqq. Moreover, no Jew as such was compelled to this external religious homage, but only the three companions of Daniel as servants of the king. With the unlimited obedience which oriental despots demand, their refusal was regarded, without respect to its cause, as an offence against majesty, and punished more as such than as anything religious. This appeai-s from the complaint, v. 10-12. It is not want of reverence towards the Babylonian gods that forms the main ground of complaint, but only the violation of the royal command, which must have been the more sensibly felt by the king since there were such numerous witnesses of it. In this view Nebuchadnezzar also regards the matter. The only charge he brings against the accused, vcr. U, 15, is, that they would not 70 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. worship his god and tlie image which he had made. The com- panions of Daniel were, therefore, persecuted only indirectly on ac- count of their religion, in as much as they, from deference to it, could not comply with all that was in a despotic state reckoned among the duties of subjects, just as Daniel himself, chap, vi., and B^^Ji^an, Esth. iii. — From the mere fact, moreover, that the character of Nebuchadnezzar and of the Babylonians in this re- spect, appears here just what it does in Ezekiel and Jeremiah, we get an evidence not to be despised in favour of the antiquity and the genuineness of Daniel. The pretended Pseudo-Daniel, liv- ing at the time of the Maccabees, who, according to Bleek and De Wette, merely invented these tales in order to inspire the Jews with fortitude under the religious persecutions of Antio- chus Epiphanes, would certainly not have omitted to represent Nebuchadnezzar, who, even in name, they tell us, was a mere creature of his fancy, and a copy of Antioclius Epiphanes, as the originator of a real religious persecution, such indeed as should concern not only merely three of his officers, but the whole Jew- ish people. Nebuchadnezzar demands only from all his officers an external testimony of respect for his gods ; Antiochus Epi- phanes wishes to force his religion upon all his subjects, to the entire abrogation of their ow^n, 1 Mace, xiiii., and is most fear- fully mad against those who are not wiUing to comply with his command. By these remarks the following argument also of Bleek, p. 259, is for the most part answered. " When we read, chap, iii,, that Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden statue, and wished to compel all his subjects to pay it worship, we are involuntarily reminded of Antiochus Epiphanes, who had the temple profaned, and con- secrated to Jupiter Olympius, and had heathen sacrifices pre- sented on the altar of burnt-oiicring, after the /3hekiry/xa ipij/jxo- cretuf, without doubt the statue of Jupiter, had been set up there. To that this section without doubt refers. That it was his object to confirm his countrymen, and to exhort them to a faithful adher- ence to the rehgion of their forefathers, is most markedly expressed in the answer of the three men. This answer the Jews were to give to tlie Syrians. But at the same time the conclusion of the narrative promises them that Jehovah will in the end achieve the victory for his cause and his worshijjpers, and that even ihcir REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 71 persecutors and his despisers shall be compelled to a recognition of his power. We cannot doubt that the narrative was com- posed very soon after that erection of the statue upon the altar of burnt- offering. The author seems even to have adopted into his description particular features of the incident. At any rate the Greek names of the musical instruments are explained on that supposition. Probably the consecration of the altar of burnt- offering as an idol-altar, and the erection of the statue of Jupiter, were attended with pomp and music. In all probabihty, then, the author called those Greek instruments by their Greek names, because they were really used at that solemnity." The dissimi- larity of the two occurrences on the whole, we have already pointed out. We have therefore farther to do only with particulars. Es- pecial stress is laid by Bleek on the fact, that in each of the cases an idol-statue is consecrated and set up for worship. But the reply is far from difficult. There never was a statue of Jujnter Olympius set up in the temple at Jerusalem. The only passage to which Bleek appeals, is 1 Mace. i. 55 : " They erected the abomination of desolation upon the altar."* But that by /S8e- Xv^jxa epT^fjboxrew'i here, we are not to understand the statue of Jupiter, but a smaller idol-altar which was placed on the altar of burnt- offering, appears from the use of wKoSofirjaav. How could this word be used of the setting up of a statue ? The same thing is apparent from the words which immediately follow — ical ev iroXeatv 'lovSa kvkKm MKoSofirja-av /3o)fj,ov<; ; and, with a cer- tainty excluding all doubt, from ver. 59, kuI rfj Trefiirrr) kuI cIkuSl tov fji7]vo. 78 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL. paiadvely full, narrative (1 Mace. ii. iv., and 2 Mace, vi.) Would not the statue have been mentioned as the first thing in each of those accounts, if it had really been set up ? In the other cities also there occurs only the setting up of altai's, nowhere of the statues of gods.* — With the same facility we may dispose of the assertion, that the conclusion of the transaction, as told in ver. 28, is only a propiiccy invested with the form of historj'. That Antiochus Epiphanes, as here related of Nebuchadnezzar, would yet some day be brought to a "recognition of the power" of the God of Israel, was in itself, considering his disposition of mind, so improbable a thing, that no one could easily admit such a thought. And what is more, and fully decisive, in our book itself it is predicted, that Antiochus Epiphanes would persist to the end in his impious temper and his hostility to the chosen people, and would perish by a judgment of God ; comp. chap. xi. and xh., especially ver. 45. Had it been the intention of the author to represent Antiochus Epiphanes by Nebuchadnezzar, would he not rather have made him to be desti'oyed by a Divine judgment, especially when he had, in the history of Sennacherib, a historical analogy for it ? Would he have designedly introduced a discre pancy which must have sei-ved to frustrate his alleged aim ? — Finally, the weakness of the argument (kawn from the pre- sumed Greek names of the musical instrimients, is manifest at a glance, and is avowed even by Kirms, p. 16. In neither of the accounts is there found the slightest trace, that at the dedication of the temple for idol-worship music was employed; and it is rendered improbable by the mere fact that the erection of a statue of Jupiter never took place. Some hint about it we might surely look for in 1 Mace. iv. 51, where we are told that the re-conse- cration was accompanied with music ; of all the instruments men- tioned in our chap., a single one only, the cither, occurs. But, if the alleged use of music at that time made such an impression on • I'erliftps nil iirgumout for the coiitriirj might be lukon from 1 Mace. i. H—oiko- iofkriaai fiuifxaiiv Kal Ti/xtvi] Kal LiSwXtta, iStc,, where the Cod. .Alex., iiistend of itSm- XtT«, buihliugs for iilol worship, lias iiSwXa. But the rorrrctnoss of the received reading is clear, imrtly from tlic word 6iKo6ofxf}(Tai, partly from Josepbus, whose para- phrase of our pass. (oiKoiofxt'ia-auTtv Si Iv tKao-Ti/iroXii Kal Mii/ti>> rifiivii dvTwv Kai pwixouv) shews that be imd iifiwXfZa, whirh word he thought he mi^ht omit, ns rom- prehendcd in xf^iM-rj. REPLY TO OBJECTIONS. 73 the Jews, that the pretended Pseudo-Daniel transferred the very names of the several instruments used by the heathens into the history of Nebuchadnezzar, how comes it to pass that in the his- torical records of this period, this fact is not once adverted to ? — What similarity is there, then, remaining between the two oc- currences ? And yet, if there were a real similarity, it would prove notliing for the opinion of our opponents. It has been shewn that Nebuchadnezzar, in the expedition against Egypt, came with a great army to Jerusalem, broke into the city, took the holy vessels out of the temple, and carried them away with him to liis own land. The same thing is told literally of Antiochus Epi- phanes, 1 Mace. i.. 19, sqq. Now, who will think of asserting on that account, that one of the two statements is untrue, and that the first, which rests not only on the testimony of Jewish writers, but also on that of Berosus, was invented Avith a view of impart- ing consolation to the Jews in the time of the Maccabees ? We pass on now to examine the objections raised against particu lars in our chap., and first of all those objections to which the mo- dem opponents, with a certain unanimity, attribute convincing force, or on which some lay a very particular- stress. " The accused rephedto the comparatively mild address of Nebuchadnezzar with revolting insolence and levity. They take it to be beneath their dignity to assign the reason of their refusal, and studiously aim to enrage the king, by raising in him the suspicion that their refusal results from mere contumacy. They use such language towards their monarch, that they themselves dictate the fiery pun- ishment, yet they are perfectly tranquil, and seem hardly able to hide fi'om the king that God will rescue them by a miracle. They must have known well, that it was never customary with the Deity to rescue even the most excellent men from fatal dangers by mi- racles. Could they, then, have had even the faintest presenti- ment of a preservation of their lives, unless it had been shewn to them by an immediate revelation fi.-om God, that the power of the fire upon their lives would be extinguished?" Berth, i. p. 253 ; KiRMS, p. GO. It is remarkable how contradictory this opinion of the behaviour of the three men is to the opinion of the whole ancient Church. \ye quote, as a specimen, only a passage of Theodoret {0pp. t: ii. p. 1110), "Who can help being amazed at the courage o^ these youths, their wisdom, their piety, 74 THE GENUINENESS OF DANIEL, their strict observance of the laws, their sobriety in all respects ? For, that they were not tenified at such a tyrant, when all man- kind, so to speak, were leagued with him against them, and at that dreadful fiery punishment, which was not only threatened in word, but was actually before their eyes, bears witness to a courage most indomitable ; and that they esteemed the law of God beyond their o\vn life, — what obedience can exceed this ^ Their moderation also is manifest, by their not making use of harsh words to the king, or, on the other hand, disgracing their biith by cowardice ; and their prudence and wusdom are shewn by their opposing a pious temper to his impious and blasphemous speeches."* Comp. also especially Calvin in loc. The grotmd of these different judg- ments hcs in nothing but the behef or disbelief of revelation. An intimation, by no means obscure, is given, that the three men would have done better to conform to the required ceremony ; he who liimself knows of no other truth than that which he has made for liimself, is stumbled if others, for the sake of truth given from above, willingly sacrifice property and life, and break through every consideration that cannot consist widi allegiance to it. — Let us look now at the several parts of the objection. The charge of insolence would certainly be well-founded, if the translation which KiKMS gives of ver. IG, " Your demand does not even deserve a reply,"t were correct. But this sense is not in the words, but is only superinduced upon them. "It is not necessary," say the three men, " for us to answer this." They mean to say that, free from all anxiety, and perfectly resolved what is to be done, they decline making any apology for God, who, as they hoped, would justify himself, or any defence, or excuse. That this is the • Tj's oiiK av iiKOTwi iicirXayii}] tJiv fxaKapiuiv tovtwv viwv Tt'iv avopiiav, ti/j/ iav,Tiiv iva-ilitiai), t^i; Trt/ol Toiis i/o/nous SiKaiocrvvtiv, tiju iripl irdi/Ta a-ui(j)po- avv)}v ; TO fxiv yap /u»; KaTUTrXayTivai tov toctovtov tKtiuov Tupai'vov, fitTo. tti'wtwv, tis tiros tLTTtiv, Av^pwTTwv apTLTfTayiitvov, Kol Tvv fxtyicTTUv ■jriipdv, oil Xoyonfiovov diriiXov/iivtfv, iWd Kal optofiiviiv, tiiv dSd/xairro^ artpporipav 'IvtoI^ dvdptiav nap- Tvpti, TO Si xoiiv ^tiouv vofxovi ti/s Trapouffiii TrpoTifxtfcrai ^oif/s, Tro/as &iKaio(Tvvi]% i)irtpfto\i)v KaTaXfiTTn ,- ti/v 6t (run^poauvnv ivTwv KiipuTTii,Td fxiJTt ^pucrta-i Kwrd TOV fiaaiXiwi x^^*'"""'-^"' Xoyoii, fii'iTt 6nXia irdXiv KaTaia-j^ivai to ytVos" ti;i/ dt (pp6vi)(iiv K«i