QUESTION:

I have a question about this article http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/chris_sandoval/daniel.html#forgeries. In paragraph 7 of the section called religious forgeries the writer writes “We read in the Book of Daniel that God’s angels ordered the venerable prophet Daniel to “shut up” and “seal” his book (Daniel 8:26; 12:4,9). Perhaps the author meant us to understand that Daniel was to conceal the meaning of the book from the unworthy (Daniel 12:9-10), but these verses can also be understood as saying that the book was to be concealed until the time that all its predictions about the end of the world were due to come to pass in the Maccabean Age. If an ancient Jewish author asserted that in an old trunk somewhere he had just discovered a book of prophecy that was four centuries old, such a claim would be hard to disprove without modern forensic equipment”, also the writer of this article http://wattslines.blogspot.com/2011/03/666-and-all-that-or-joy-of-apocalyptic.html ses in the section called Pseudonymity in paragraph 2 “Many of these pseudonymous works indicate that the message was “unsealed” or “revealed” at some “later” time, the time of the actual writing. The Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible uses pseudonymity in this way (cf. Daniel 12:4-10)” . Is there any truth to these statements?

Answer:

What you need to do is read my book on Daniel. I go into great detail on this question there. It is available at www.ipibooks.com The simple answer is no. We cannot prove when Daniel was written, but what we can conclude from the evidence, from the Hebrew in the book, from the use the book was put to, from the accurate historical information in the book and so forth that the Book of Daniel was written in the sixth or perhaps the fifth century BC. People desparately want to put the book in the second half of the second century so that they can refute the obvious inspired prophecy in the book. Given that Daniel was part of the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible in about 200 BC and that a manuscript of Daniel from about 150 BC was found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, we can assume that Daniel was in the Hebrew canon by 200 BC or earlier. Given the time span between the writing of a book and its entrance into the canon, this puts the book before 250 BC, but almost certainly much earlier. The Jewish scribes were not stupid. They would not have put a fake–apseudonymous book which was a deceitful attempt to appear to be actual prophecy–into their Bible.

Josephus tells us that Daniel was shown to Alexander the Great when he came to Jerusalem in 333 BC. The Jews who addressed the question all agree that Daniel was not hidden in the sense that the author you quote claim. As far as I know there is literally no evidence that the book was hidden from the Jews. This is sheer speculation with no evidence to support it and a lot of evidence to refute it. Please remember that this theory is developed to support the claim that the book is not inspired, not because of evidence to support it. Your author says “If an ancient Jewish author asserted that in an old trunk somewhere he had just discovered a book of prophecy that was four centuries old, such a claim would be hard to disprove without modern forensic equipment.” OK, I can agree with that, but this has not happened. This is sheer speculation. A theory with no evidence is not a very useful theory.

The other author says, Many of these pseudonymous works indicate that the message was “unsealed” or “revealed” at some “later” time, the time of the actual writing. The Book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible uses pseudonymity in this way (cf. Daniel 12:4-10).” This sounds like double talk. What does he mean that Daniel uses pseudonymity in this way. How is the phrase “seal up the vision” “Using” pseudonymity. This is a meaningless phrase. Using pseudonymity would be to use fake the authorship of a book to pretend it is much earlier. This is a nonsense statement. The fact that Daniel used the phrase, “seal up this prophecy” is NOT evidence that the author is a liar. If someone wants to claim that the author was a liar, what they need is to offer evidence that he was a liar. This author fails to do this as far as I can see.

There are many other arguments for a fifth century or earlier BC date, including the language in the book. Again, please get a copy of my book Daniel, Prophet to the Nations to suppport this conclusion, and please remember that these authors have a hidden agenda.

John Oakes

 

 

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