That the Book of Daniel was quite old
by the time of the Septuagint is evidenced by the fact that the translators
were completely unaware of the meaning of many terms in Daniel as evidenced by
the mistranslations. Kitchen points out that the Septuagint rendering of four
Persian loan words in Daniel “are hopelessly inexact—mere guesswork,” which
indicates that the terms were so ancient that “their meaning was already lost
and forgotten (or at the least, drastically changed) long before he [the
translator] set to work.” (Kitchen, Notes, 43) (Stephen R. Miller, Daniel:
An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture [The New
American Commentary 18; Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1994], 39)
