Most modern
scholars prefer a late Maccabean dating (of around 165 BCE) for the book of
Daniel in line with Driver’s famous assertion that “the Greek words demand, the Hebrew supports, and the
Aramaic permits, a date after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great (BC 332).”[1]
But already in 1965 Kitchen would take issue with
Driver when he demonstrated a number of linguistic features that could indicate
an earlier date for the stories.[2] Fitzmyer
on the Genesis Apocryphon also points to an earlier date for the Aramaic of
Daniel.[3] Coxon
was cautious in his series of linguistic studies in the late 1970s but allowed
that much of the evidence could point to an earlier date for the Aramaic of
Daniel.[4] Other
work, by such as Yamauchi and Masson, casts doubt on the particular notion that
the presence of Greek words in Daniel necessitates a late date.[5] More
recently Z. Stefanovic, The Aramaic of
Daniel, p. 108, concludes that ‘the search for features in (Daniel Aramaic)
of an early date should be pursued more intensively.’[6]
John J. Collins, a staunch defender of a late
date Daniel, discredits the work of
Stefanovic in no uncertain terms, yet he makes an unusual concession. While
acknowledging that a “precise dating on linguistic grounds is not possible,” he
concludes that the Aramaic of Daniel is later than that of the Samaria papyri (Wadi
Daliyeh, fourth century BCE) but earlier than that of the Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20).[7]
E. C. Lucas proposes:
“The form of the prophecies of Dan.
8:23-25 and 11 is best explained if they originated in the
Babylonian Dispersion and the author was well acquainted with the Babylonian omen literature, someone skilled in the
language and letters of the Chaldeans, as the account in Dan. 1 indicates.”[8]
However, in line with what Collins said, if the “Men of the Great Synagogue” did indeed edit parts of Daniel, as the
Talmud suggests, then a precise dating of the book on linguistic grounds would
be impossible.
[1] S.
R. Driver, Daniel, p. lxiii. See also
A. A. Bevan, Daniel, pp. 41, 42.
[2] See
his conclusions in K. A. Kitchen, ‘The Aramaic of Daniel,’ in D. J. Wiseman et al., Notes on Some Problems in the Book
of Daniel (London: Tyndale Press, 1965), pp. 77–79. A much earlier move in
the same direction was taken by H. H. Schaeder, Iranische Beiträge
(Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1930), I, pp. 199, 120, as cited by P. A. David,
‘The Composition and Structure of the Book of Daniel: A Synchronic and
Diachronic Reading,’ under ‘Composition and Structure,’ p. 50.
[3] J.
A. Fitzmyer, ‘Some Observations on the Genesis
Apocryphon,’ CBQ 22 (1960), p.
279; and Genesis Apocryphon, pp.
19–23. See also G. L. Archer, ‘The Aramaic of the “Genesis Apocryphon” Compared
with the Aramaic of Daniel,’ in J. B. Payne (ed.), New Perspectives on the Old Testament (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1970),
pp. 161–169, whose polemical tone should not distract the reader from his
argument for Daniel Aramaic as an early eastern form of the language.
[4] For
example P. W. Coxon, ‘A Morphological Study of the h-Prefix in Biblical Aramaic,’ JAOS
98 (1978), p. 416; ‘The Problem of Consonantal Mutations in Biblical Aramaic,’ ZDMG 129 (1979), p. 22; ‘The
Distribution of Synonyms in Biblical Aramaic in the Light of Official Aramaic
and the Aramaic of Qumran,’ RevQ 19
(1978), p. 512; and ‘The Syntax of the Aramaic of Daniel: A Dialectical Study,’ HUCA
48 (1977), p. 122.
[5] E.
Masson, Recherches sur les plus anciens emprunts sémitiques en grec
(Paris: C. Klincksieck, 1967), pp. 113, 14; and E.M. Yamauchi, ‘Daniel and
Contacts between the Aegean and the Near East before Alexander,’ EvQ 53 (1981), p. 47, who concludes his
essay with the hope that ‘future commentaries will come to recognize that the
Greek words in Daniel cannot be used to date the book to the Hellenistic age.’
[6] T.
J. Meadowcroft, (1995). Vol. 198: Aramaic Daniel and Greek Daniel: A Literary
Comparison. Journal for the Study of
the Old Testament Supplement Series, pp. 277–278. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
[7] John
J. Collins, A Commentary on the Book of
Daniel, Hermeneia-series, pp. 16 [footnote 156], 17, and R. J. Korner, “The
“Exilic” Prophecy of Daniel 7:
Does It Reflect Late Pre-Maccabean or Early Hellenistic Historiography?” in Prophets, Prophecy, and Ancient Israelite
Historiography [ed. M. J. Boda and L. M. Wray Beal; Leiden: Brill, 2013], p. 348.
[8] E.
C. Lucas, “Daniel: Resolving the Enigma,” Vetus
Testamentum, Vol. 50, Fasc. 1 (Jan., 2000), p. 76.
