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Greek words occur in Imperial Aramaic at the end of the fifth century BC (statēr, probably dōrēma?, just possibly others), and there is nothing to stop them appearing earlier. onwards Greek mercenaries and artisans served the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar. Greek wares reached all over the Ancient Near East from the eighth century B.C. 77) states, “Only three words (of one class: music) are involved. Skeptics also point to the instruments mentioned in Daniel, suggesting that they were Greek in origin and therefore not likely to be in Babylon. One example is the word Ashpenaz (in 1:3), which was unknown in the 2 nd century and translated as a personal name with an unknown meaning, yet meant “innkeeper.” (Haughwout, 2013). Numerous scholars have identified Old Persian words that were no longer in use in the 2 nd century B.C. The Nabateans also spoke Aramaic, yet this group of Arabs was not established until the 3 rd century B.C. Wilson (1997) notes that Daniel has a mixture of Hebrew, Persian and Babylonian words and differs from the Aramaic of the Nabateans. and of the Aramaic of the North Semitic inscriptions of the 9 th, 8 th, and 7 th centuries B.C. They were not written in a way consistent with dating around 165 B.C.Īccording to Wilson (1997), the Aramaic of Daniel aligns in orthography, syntax, and etymology with Egyptian papyri of the 5 th century B.C. Second, the languages are written in a way that is consistent with the ancient forms of the languages in those centuries. For one, Daniel refers to himself in the first person in much of the book and makes the dating claim himself. We have numerous reasons to believe the book of Daniel was written when Daniel said it was written, between 604 B.C. when the Temple was obliterated, just as he prophesied (9:27)! If we didn’t have the Dead Sea Scrolls, which scholars believe are dated to around 150 B.C., skeptics would have said Daniel was written after 70 A.D.
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These “later dating” scholars are biased by their refusal to acknowledge fulfilled prophecies. Others in recent times have jumped onto Porphyry’s bandwagon, making similar claims of later dating. Porphyry determined that Daniel must have written the book in hindsight, not in advance. Porphyry made this assertion based on Daniel 11:21, which he believed was a prophecy about Antiochus Epiphenes IV. In his book Against Christians, Porphyry (285 A.D.) put forth the notion that Daniel was written no earlier than 165 B.C. Lamentations, written by the great prophet Jeremiah, is also in the “writings.” Furthermore, Jesus, who was considered a Jewish rabbi, referred to Daniel as a prophet in Matthew 24:15 and Mark 13:14. It should be noted that Daniel is placed between the books of Esther and Ezra / Nehemiah, which also contain histories and were written in the early Persian period. Perhaps its detailing of historical records led to its classification within the Jewish Scriptures as “writings” instead of “prophets.” Skeptics have often pointed to this classification to suggest that Daniel’s prophecies were of minor importance. The first six chapters detail historical records of this time period, while chapters seven to twelve detail Daniel’s visions. The Aramaic portion is in Daniel l 2:4 – 7:28. The book is written in both Hebrew and Aramaic. The book ends two years after the seventy years of exile in 532 B.C. Daniel and several other young men (1:4) were deported from Judah to Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar. The book of Daniel begins in 604 B.C., which is eighteen years prior to the destruction of the first Temple in 586 B.C. Accordingly, I will address the literature on this topic. Such a consensus makes me wonder about whether scholarship is controlled by people who are skeptical of the supernatural inferences in Daniel’s prophecies.
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According to some, the “scholarly consensus” on the dating of Daniel is that the book of Daniel was written in the 2 nd century B.C.