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Studies in the Book of Daniel, a discussion of the historical questions PDF

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STUDIES facing] THE IN BOOK OF DANIEL A DISCUSSION OF THE HISTORICAL QUESTIONS BY y ROBERT DICK WILSON, Ph.D., d.d. WM. H. GREEN PROFESSOR OF SEMITIC LANGUAGES AND OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PUTNAM'S SONS G. P. NEW YORK AND LONDON Zbc Umfcfeerbocfeer press 1917 Copyright, 1917 BY ROBERT DICK WILSON UbettnfcJterbocherpress, HewJ£orfe INTRODUCTION This volume is concerned especially with the objec- tions made to the historical statements containedin the book of Daniel, andtreats incidentallyof chronological, geographical, and philosophical questions. In a second volume,itis myintention to discuss theobjectionsmade against the book on the ground of philological assump- tions basedon the natureofthe Hebrew andAramaic in which it is written. In a third volume, I shall discuss Daniel's relation to the canon of the Old Testament as determining the date of the book, and in connection with this the silence ot Ecclesiasticus with reference to Daniel, the alleged absence of an observable influence of Daniel upon post-captivity literature, and the whole matter of apocalyptic literature, especially in its rela- tion to predictive prophecy. The method pursued is to give first of all a discussion _ of some of the principles involved in the objections con- sidered in the pages following; then, to state the objec- tions with the assumptions on whichThey"are based; next, to give the reasons why these assumptions are adjudged to be false; and, lastly, to sum up in a few words the conclusions to bederived fromthe discussion. As to the details of my method, it will be observed that I have sought in the case of every objection to confront it with documentary evidence designed to show that the assumptions underlying the objection iv Introduction are contrary to fact. When no direct evidence is pro- curable either in favor of or against an objection, I have endeavored to show by analogy, or the production of similar instances, that the events or statements recorded in Daniel are possible; and that the objections to these events, or statements, cannot be proved by mere assertion unsupported by testimony. In the first chapter, the inadequacy of the argument from silence to prove that the books of the Old Testa- ment contain misrepresentations, is shown by giving a resume of the historical documents of the Hebrews, As- syrians, Babylonians, Egyptians, and others, in their relations to one another. A careful reading of this summary of the known evidence ought to convince all unbiased judges that an argument from the silence of onedocumentastoeventswhicharerecordedinanother, is usually devoid of validity. In many cases, it will be seen that for long periods of time there are no extra- biblical documents whatever; in othercases, there is,for long periods of time, no evidence eitherbiblical or extra- biblical. Again, oftenwhendocumentsofthe same time arefound, theytreatof subjectsentirelyalien to thesub- jects treated of in the other, and hence have no bearing on the case. Or, even when they treat of the same subjects, the narrators look at them from a different point of view and one will be intentionally silent where the other enlarges upon the topic. Chapter two discusses the objections made by Dean Farrar to the very existence of Daniel on the ground that his name even is not mentioned on the monu- ments of his time. Here I show, first, that it is not to be expected that the Jewish name of Daniel would ever have been used in Babylonian documents, inasmuch as Nebuchadnezzar changed it to Belteshazzar on his Introduction v arrival in Babylon secondly, that the name Belshazzar, ; under which form the name Belteshazzar might be written in Babylonian, does occur on the Babylonian tablets as the name of several individuals and that one of these may have been the Daniel of our book; thirdly, that it is difficult to make any possible identi- fication of Daniel, owing to the fact that his ances- tors are not mentioned in the Bible; fourthly, that even if his ancestors were known, he could not be identified from the monuments, because on them the father or grandfather is never mentioned in the case of slaves, or even of foreigners, except in the case ofkings andtheir children; and lastly,that itis unreasonable to expect to find the nameof Daniel upon the monuments, first, because the names of slaves are rarely mentioned; secondly, because the names of slaves are never found as witnesses, and those of foreigners but rarely; thirdly, because the annals and display and building inscrip- tions of the kings never mention the names of anybody exceptoccasionally the namesofthekingstheyconquer, of an occasional general, and of the members of their own families. In fact, no better illustration than this of Dean Farrar can be found of the fact that a man, however brilliant as a preacher and as a writer and however accomplished as a classical scholar, is but a blind leader of the blind when he attempts to speak upon such complicated matters as those which are involved in an introduction to the book of Daniel, without having first mastered the languages and the literature of Babylon and Persia. Chapter three treats of the silence of the other biblical documents and of the monuments as to an expedition of Nebuchadnezzar, said by Daniel to have been made against Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim. It vi Introduction will be noted that in this particular case of the alleged silence of other sources, there is a tacit overlooking of the testimony to this expedition afforded by the frag- ments of Berosus, who states that Nebuchadnezzar was in Palestine at the time when his father Nabopolassar died, which according to the Babylonian system of reckoning the years of a king would have been the third year of Jehoiakim. It will be noted, further, that the critics in their allegations oferroragainst the author of Daniel have failed to consider thewhole matterofthe different ways of reckoning the regnal years of a king, and the different times at which, among different na- , tions, the year was supposed to begin. This frequently 'renders it very difficult to determine the corresponding months and years of a king's reign in the different countries, and should make us slow in asserting that the third*year of a king in one document might not be the same as the fourth year in another. Again, I show in this chapter that Jeremiah and the books of Kings and Chronicles do not purport to give us a complete history of the times of Nebuchadnezzar, and that, hence, it is not fair to say that an event which is mentioned in Daniel cannot be true because it is not mentioned in these other writings; and, further, that the monuments of Nebuchadnezzar say nothing definite about his military expeditions, except about one to Egypt in his thirty-seventh year, although they do show conclusively that he was king of Syria and many other countries, whose kings are said to do his bidding. Lastly, it is shown that in thefragments of his history of Babylon, Berosus supports the statement of Daniel, that Nebuchadnezzar made an expedition to Palestine before he was crowned ing of Babylon, and I carried away spoils from Judea which were placed in his Introduction vii temple at Babylon, and that there is no statement made in Daniel about this expedition which is in any way controverted by any other direct testimony. Chapter four answers a further question connected with the expedition of Nebuchadnezzar against Jeru- salem in the third year of Jehoiakim, arising from the charge that the author of Daniel made false inter- pretations of the sources known to him. An exami- nation of the alleged sources of Daniel's information showed that he does not contradict these sources nor make erroneous interpretation of them; but that, on the contrary, it is the critics who, on the ground of their own implications and conjectures and sometimes of their crass ignorance of geography and of the his- torical situation, have really manufactured or im- agined a case against Daniel. No more astonishing example of the fabrication of evidence can be found in the history of criticism than the use which is madeof the statements of the Old Testament with regard to Carchemish, in order to show that Nebuchadnezzar cannot have moved against Jerusalem as long as this fortress was in the hands of the Egyptians. The critics of^Daniel have^ssumed not merely that the Egyptians had Carchemish in their possession, but also that it lay on the way from Jerusalem to Babylon, so as to cut off, if in an enemy's hands, a possible retreat of Nebu- chadnezzar from Palestine to Babylon. A knowledge of the position of Carchemish and of the lines of traffic from Damascusto the Euphrates shouldhaveprecluded them from statements so unscientific from a geographi- cal and military point of view. Chapter five investigates the use of the wordfor king, especially in the Semitic languages. This discussion showsthat Nebuchadnezzar may have been called king Introduction viii before his father's death; and will serve also as an in- troduction to the discussion of the kingship of Belshaz- zar and that of Darius the Mede, in that it illustrates that there might be two kings of the same place at the same time. Chapter six considers the objections made to the book of Daniel on the ground of what it says in regard to Belshazzar. Here, it is shown that Belshazzar, the • son of Nabunaid, may, according to the usage of those times, have been also the son of Nebuchadnez- zar; that there is good reason to suppose that he was king of the Chaldeans before he became king of Babylon; that he may have been king of Babylon long enough to justify the writer of Daniel in speaking of his first year as king of that city; that the fact that he is not called king elsewhere by his contemporaries is simply an argument from silence, paralleled byother instances; and that neither the biblical sources outside of Daniel, nor the monuments, say that any man other than Belshazzarwas last defacto king of the city of Babylon. In short, it is shown that the evidence fails to sub- stantiate the assertion that the statements of Daniel in regard to Belshazzarare false. Chapters seven to thirteen treat of all the ques- tions that have been raised concerning Darius the Mede and the Median Empire, showing that if we identify Darius with the Gubaru of the inscriptions, there is no objective reason for denying the truth of the biblical statements with regard to him. It is shown, that Darius may have been the name of a Mede; that he may have been the son of a man called Xerxes (i. e., Ahasuerus) of the seed of the Medes that he may have ; reigned at thesame timeas Cyrusand assub-king under him; that he could have appointed one hundred and Introduction ix twenty satraps over his kingdom, even though it was restricted to Chaldea and Babylonia alone; that he may have had a den of lions, containing lions sufficient to have devoured the conspirators against Daniel and their families that he could not have been a reflection ; of Darius Hystaspis, or of any one, or all, of the Persian kings of the name Darius in short, that, granting that ; Darius the Medehad two names (for which supposition there is abundant evidence from the analogy of other kings), there is no ground for impugning the veracity of the account of Darius the Mede as given in the book of Daniel. To particularize, it is shown, in chapter seven, that it is pure conjecture to suppose that the author of Daniel thought that Darius the Mede preceded Cyrus the Persian as kingof Babylon, or that Cyrus succeeded to the empire of Babylon on the death of the Median Darius; further, it is shown, that Darius the Mede may have had a second name, Gubaru (Gobryas), and that he probably received the government of Chaldea and Babylon from Cyrus. Chapter eight treats of the statements of Daniel with regard to the part taken by the Medes and Persians respectively in the conquest ofBabylon, and shows that they are in harmony with the monumental evidence. Chapter nine discusses the allegation that the author of Daniel was deficient in knowledge and confused in thought in the statements which he makes with regard to the Persian empire, especially with regard to the names and number of its kings, the absolute rulership of Darius the Mede, and the division and number of its satrapies. Chapter ten answers the assumption that Darius the Mede has been confusedwith Darius Hystaspis, because x Introduction each of them is said to have organized his kingdom into satrapies. It is shown that the satrapies varied so in extent, that there may easily have been one hundred and twenty of them in the dominions over which Darius the Mede was made king; and that Darius Hystaspis did not originate the government bysatraps, since the Assyrian monarchs, especially Sargon the Second, had organized their possessions in the same manner. Chapters eleven and twelve treat of the assumption that Darius theMede is a reflection ofDariusHystaspis. By a careful comparison of what Daniel says about Darius the Mede with what is known from all sources about Darius Hystaspis, the evidence is given to show that, whatever else Darius the Mede may have been, he cannot have been a reflection of Darius Hystaspis. In chapter eleven are discussed the names and families of the two kings, showing that in these particulars Darius the Mede cannot have been the reflection of Darius the Persian. Chapter twelve shows how the two kings differ in the age and manner of their becoming king, in the names and extent of the kingdoms over which they ruled, in theirrelationto other kings, in their methodsof govern- ment, and in their personal characteristics. Chapter thirteen treats'of thealleged confusion by the author of Daniel of Xerxes and Darius Hystaspis, and of his further alleged confusion of this alleged confused Xerxes-Darius with Darius Codomannus. It treats, further, of the alleged belief of the author, that there was a triumphant repulse by Alexander the Great of an attack on Greece by this confused Xerxes-Darius- Hystaspis-Codomannus. Chapter fourteen gives the latest evidence to show

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4 Reginald Stuart Poole in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, i, 439. 1 Das Buck Daniel, p. 14. 6, Cb. 9). * Kakkar ruktum rabttu {id.,. NR. 5). 5 Kullu napharisun {id., NR. 26). But, it will be said, it is absurd to suppose, that the.
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