Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Stephen R. Miller on the Antiquity of the Book of Daniel by the Time of the Septuagint

  

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)