The Book of Daniel

The Book of Daniel

Introduction

The Book of Daniel is present in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. It is found in the section Ketuvim of the Bible. The Book of Daniels is one of the most contested parts of the Old Testament. It is second only to the beginning chapters of Genesis. The book has been named after its central character, as well as the author, Daniel. The majority of the first six chapters of The Book of Daniel is about the experiences of Daniel in the court of Babylon. The last six chapters are about his visions and dreams. The interpretation of his dreams has many different views. One of the most contested and talked about themes in the Old Testament scholarship is the date of The Book of Daniel. There are generally two differing views about the date of The Book of Daniel. The first view is that The Book of Daniel was written in Judea in the 2nd century BC. It was written to encourage the inhabitants of Israel who were undergoing prosecution by Seleucids, who was working under Antiochus IV Epiphanies. The author urges the fellow Jews to stay calm and remain faithful to their Lord. The writer used his work for predicting the future. The second point of view about the date of the book is that it was written by a Jewish exile named Daniel in the Babylon during the sixth century BC. Daniel used to predict events accurately. He served at the royal court. The predicted events of Daniel did not come to life until the 2nd century. This paper will look into the details of the facts which led to this debate about the date of The Book of Daniel.

Discussion

Predictive Prophecy

The Book of Daniel is a predictive philosophy. Daniel claims to be forecasting the future on many occasions. On many occasions, Daniel was asked to seal up his visions about his predictions. This was asked to make sure that once the predictions have come to life, the people can have a clear evidence that the prophet has foreseen the future. However, since Porphyry's time (c.232 - c.305 AD), the presence of predictive philosophy has been denied to be present in Scriptures. Porphyry conducted a word to word study of the verses of The Book of Daniel to support his argument that The Book of Daniel was written in the second century BC. During the years of enlightenment, many of the arguments that Porphyry produced were revived. They supported the conviction that predictive philosophy is not possible (Baldwin 1978).

Aramaic portion

Many scholars have speculated and studied about the literary structure that Daniel has used in The Book of Daniel. All of the book is written in Biblical Hebrew except for the chapters 2 to 7. Many of the scholars believe that the entire book was first written in Aramaic and was then translated into Hebrew. This was done to increase the acceptance of the book.

John j. Collins speculates that the Aramaic that is used ...