F. SIXTH-CENTURY DATE
Those who advocate for a sixth-century date for the visions do so with
a core issue in mind: that Daniel, a Babylonian exile who lived in the sixth
century, actually had these visions of the future. When they were incorporated
into the final form of the book of Daniel is less important than the historical
identity of the seer. This core issue is important to these advocates because
it is viewed as the only way that the text could be maintained as the word of
God. To claim that the first-person presentation of the visions is a literary device
rather than a straightforward statement concerning the identity of the vision’s
historical recipient is understood as incompatible with the text’s inspiration
and tantamount to fraud: as Tremper Longman states succinctly, “either Daniel
gave this prophecy” or it “trades in deception.”
1. References to Daniel in Ezekiel, the Gospels, and Josephus
Those who affirm an early date for Daniel sometimes appeal to Ezek
14:14, 20 which refers to a figure named “Daniel” (dnʾl). These verses associate “Daniel” with “Noah” and “Job,” each
well known by Ezekiel’s audience and associated with remarkable righteousness.
So too, Ezek 28:3 asks the king of Tyre mockingly whether he thinks he is
“wiser than Daniel.” There are two issues with the Ezekiel evidence as it
relates to arguments concerning Daniel’s composition. First, it is unclear
whether Ezekiel is referring to the “Daniel” (dnyʾl) described in the biblical book of Daniel or to a
non-Israelite figure known for effective prayer, such as the Ugaritic character
“Dan’el.” Second, however, even if Ezekiel is referring to the Judean exile
Daniel, this does not imply anything regarding the authorship of the narratives
or visions associated with him. Even those who posit a second-century
composition for the visions would have no need to doubt that the sixth-century
character, Daniel, may well have been familiar to Ezekiel and his audience.
A much stronger piece of evidence for Daniel’s authorship of the
visions appears in the New Testament. In Matt 24:15, Jesus refers to the
“abomination that causes desolation” (bdelygma
tēs erēmōseōs), an unmistakable reference to the phrase used in Dan 9:27;
11:31; and 12:11. Jesus also attributes this phrase to the “prophet, Daniel.”
In this case, he is applying a vision concerning the persecutions of Antiochus
IV Epiphanes (cf. 1 Macc 1:54) to a similar act of desecration that would be
committed by the Romans in their destruction of the temple in the first century
CE. As we will discuss further in our commentary, the understanding that
visions and prophecies could receive multiple fulfillments and be
recontextualized to refer to later events was common in the ancient world.
Jesus’s statement is also understood, however, by advocates of the
sixth-century date as an affirmation of the Danielic authorship of the vision.
Such an assumption, however, implies that Jesus, in making this statement, was
concerned with the modern categories of authorship and texts and defined them
the way that we do today. The issue is not whether Jesus was “right” or “wrong”
about his authorial attribution. It is whether he was making a claim about authorship in the way that we define it
at all. In our view, Jesus is not making a historical claim concerning
authorship, but a textual claim regarding the speaking voice associated with
these visions, which were likely well known in his day. Daniel is the speaking
voice associated with these visions. An analogous example can be found in Jude
14, when Jude refers to the prophecies of Enoch.
Finally, Josephus claims that Daniel’s visions were shown to Alexander
the Great following his conquest over Jerusalem in order to demonstrate that
his victory had been foretold (Josephus, A.J.
11.8.5). This is most likely a legendary account, as there is no historical
source that corroborates Jerusalem’s surrender to Alexander. The account in
Josephus confirms only that Daniel’s visions were well known to him by the
first century CE.
2. Canonization and Fulfillment
Portions of all twelve chapters of Daniel are extant at Qumran in
manuscripts that date from the late second century BCE to the mid-first century
CE. This manuscript evidence demonstrates that the book of Daniel was well
known by at least the late second century BCE. The quotations from the book of
Daniel in 4Q174 are also introduced with the prophetic quotation formula, “as
it is written in the scroll of Daniel the prophet,” indicating that they were
understood as an authoritative prophetic word at that time. Proponents of the
sixth-century date question how a work completed in the second century BCE
could have been accepted as an authoritative text so quickly in the community.
Ultimately, however, this evidence is indecisive, as it only indicates that the
visions of Daniel were written before the texts that refer to them: both the
sixth-century and second-century dates comfortably fit this rubric.
3. Affirmation of Prophecy
External evidence aside, the crux of the matter for proponents of the
sixth-century date of the visions of Daniel is the affirmation of divinely
inspired predictive prophecy. This is not a new debate. Indeed, the terms of
this debate were set as early as the third century CE. The pagan writer
Porphyry (234–305 CE) observed the specificity of the vision’s account of
events up until the persecution of Antiochus IV Epiphanes compared with the
vague references to what follows. He understood this as evidence that the book
was written during the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes as vaticinium ex eventu, or prophecy written after the event, a
precursor to modern arguments concerning the book’s dating. Jerome responded to
Porphyry’s concern with a vigorous defense of predictive prophecy, claiming
that it was the very reliability of the things foretold that led to Porphyry’s
proposition in the first place.
It is true that some critiques of the sixth-century authorship of
Daniel have been rooted in an a priori assumption that supernatural events such
as predictive prophecy are impossible. The quotations from Pusey in the
nineteenth century, declaring that Daniel must be either divine or an imposture, and echoed by Waltke, Tully, and
Longman in the twentieth to twenty-first centuries, quoted above, confirm that
this dialogue surrounding the book of Daniel as a test-case for the possibility
of predictive prophecy continues. Is this dichotomy, however, historically
entrenched as it may be, necessary? Several scholars who hold to the
authoritative status of Scripture have recently claimed that it is not. John
Goldingay and Ernest Lucas accept the possibility of predictive prophecy and
replace it with a second question particular to Daniel: It is not would or could God use a sixth-century figure to predict events in the
second century. But did God do it in
this case? That is, is Daniel claiming to be predictive prophecy at all? Our
questions concerning the dating of the text should not come first from a priori
assumptions about God’s ability to predict the future, but through evidence
within the text itself, which gives insight into the context in which it is
written. It is possible that, as Lucas states, the book of Daniel might not be
impressing us with its “prediction of
history,” but might be convicting us with its authoritative “interpretation of it.” We add ourselves
to this number of scholars who affirm inspired predictive prophecy and the
inspired nature of Scripture and yet question the early date of Daniel. (Aubrey
E. Buster and John H. Walton, The Book of Daniel, Chapters 1-6 [New International
Commentary on the Old Testament; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2005], 36-40)
