Prophecies of Daniel.

[Aractus]

The main evidence I present for the dating of Daniel is the predictions for the future made in Chapter 11 verse 40 onwards, before that verse the predictions correlate extremely closely to what actually happen. After Chapter 11 verse 40, the events being predicted diverge wildly from actual historical events. Particularly the prediction that god would soon intervene and destroy the Seleucid empire, this would be closely followed by the resurrection of the dead. This a big reason why scholars of Daniel who aren't evangelical Christians date the writing of Daniel to the Maccabean revolt, no other book of the Bible can be dated so precisely as Daniel can be.

As far I know it the dating for the Daniel fragments found among the Dead Sea Scrolls being in the 2nd century BCE, does not conflict with Daniel being written during the Maccabean revolt.

Also I don't believe in any so-called prophecies that have been made. Because they turn out to be either prophecies made after the fact and/or they are inaccurate (often wildly so).

Okay, let's split up these criticisms and address them separately. I'll address the significance of the date firstly.

One of the mss found at Qumran is reliably dated to late 2nd century BC (ie ~125 BC). The DSS themselves were the library (or part of the library) of works owned by a Jewish sect called the Essenes. Virtually all DSS date within 2nd century BC to first century AD; meaning we can reasonably infer that the majority of the scrolls themselves were penned by the Essenes. Some, however, would have been owned by the sectarians previously and added to the collection, thus we have the earliest dated fragment to the very late 3rd century BC.

Where was the book of Daniel written? Was it written at Qumran? It is near universally accepted that it was not written at Qumran, it was likely penned at Babylon. Thus we can conclude that the 125 BC mss that was discovered at Qumran is not the autograph. So it had to be written sometime prior to this - and gained enough circulation that a Jewish sect would be interested in having a number of copies of it. All this suggests that it was indeed canonized well before the 2dn century BC - the Essenes wouldn't have been interested in the book if it was a contemporary work.

The DSS provide further evidence that the book was not contemporary and was indeed accepted as scripture. The Manual of Discipline & Zadokite Fragments quote a number of books of the scripture, with the annotation "It is written". Books quoted are Deuteronomy, Numbers, Leviticus, Proverbs and Isaiah. Additionally, Zadokite quotes Deuteronomy, Numbers, Isaiah, Malachi, Amos, Zechariah, Hosea, and Micah with the annotation "God said". The apocryphal books are quoted but not with those annotations. Also, 1QpHab indicates that Habakkuk was accepted as scripture.

Josephus lists Daniel as being in the Prophets and not the Writings (in the Leningrad Codex it's in the Writings). He also mentions that authorship is attributed to Daniel.

Now we move on to internal biblical evidence. Daniel appears three times in Ezekiel. He is mentioned by Jesus himself as a prophet (Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14), Jesus also uses the title "Son of Man" for himself numerous times - this is taken directly from Daniel 7:13.

Apocrypha - it is mentioned in 1 Maccabees. The events in 1 Maccabees take place in the 2nd century BC, thus its original authorship date is dated to this time - 135 BC. With a late authorship date of Daniel being in 165-163 BC that's a mere 30 years after critics of Daniel believe it was originally written!

Finally, among all the evidence, there isn't any that proves that the book is a forgery, or that it was written in stages. Thus the evidence is very strong that the book was not written in the 2nd century BC, and had to be written well before this time.