Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/840

304 D A N I K L god of the waters), when there is so obvious a source for the phrase in the second part of Isaiah, or that " like a son of the gods " (iii. 25) means, " like the divine fire-god Bar ] " Nor is M. Lenormant much more fortunate in his supposed discovery of a reference to Nebuchadnezzar s equally supposed recognition of one supreme deity. The fact is that the greater gods of Babylonia at this period were two in number, viz., Maruduk (Merodach) and Nabu (Nebo), who are coupled, for instance, by Nebuchadnezzar in the great inscription translated by M. Oppert. (3.) There are in Daniel three undoubted points of agreement with Babylonian custom, viz., the punishment of burning alive (iii. 6), the description of the dress of the courtiers (iii. 21), and the mention of the presence of women at feasts (v. 2). On the other hand, there is (a) a striking inaccuracy in the use of the term " Chaldeans " for " astrologers." This use is directly opposed by the cuneiform inscriptions, and it is useless (in the face of Hebrew etymology) to meet this fact by an imaginary correspondence of the three names for the wise men in the book of Daniel to the three leading classes of magicians, <fcc., mentioned in the inscriptions. (6) There is also (as M. Lenormant has observed) an error in the use of the Assyrian saknu (reproduced in the Aramaic of ii. 48), which really means " a high civil officer," but is used in Daniel in the sense of arch-magician. (4.) The points of disagreement between the book of Daniel and Babylonian history have probably been exaggerated. It is true the former tells us many strange things of Nebuchadnezzar, who is only known in history as a great warrior, a great builder, and a great patron of learning. His lycanthropy is not mentioned in any historical documents as yet dis covered ; to quote Berosus (ap. Josephus, contr. Ap. i. 20) is entirely beside the mark, as Hilgenfeld and Mr Fuller have convincingly shown. The statements respecting Belshazzar have been in part confirmed. Bilu-sarra-usur is the name of the eldest son of Nabu-nahid or Nabonadius, and a dated tablet in the British Museum, recently obtained from Babylon, proves that the last king of Babylon was Maruduk-sarra-usur, which may be the same name as Belshazzar, since Maruduk is identical with Bel-Merodach. Jt must be confessed, however, that Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar, as appears to be stated in Dan. v. 2, 11, 18, 22. This has been met by the assertion that " son " in Dan. v. means " grandson ; " but that Belshazzar was even the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar is still unproved, not to mention the strangeness of interpreting " thy father" in v. 11 as = "my father" (on the hypothesis that t Belshazzar s mother was daughter of Nebuchadnezzar). The most puzzling discrepancy, however, relates to the name of the Medo-Persian king, who " received " from God s hands the " distributed " Babylonian empire (v. 28, 31). The book of Daniel states (v, 31) that this was Darius the Mede ; profane history asserts that it was Cyrus the Persian. Many attempts have been made to reconcile these opposing statements. Some think that Darius the Mede was Astyages, but there is a chronological difficulty ; others, Cyaxares II., but we are not certain that such a king existed ; while Des Vignoles and M. Lenormant would make him a Median prince, rewarded by Cyrus for his fidelity with the vassal kingship of Babylon. Unfortu nately this Median prince is at present even more shadowy than Cyaxares II. " The inscriptions," remarks Mr G. Smith, "have as yet afforded no information on this point." But this is not the only difficulty about Darius the Mede. In ix. 1 we are told that he was the son of Ahasuerus, who on philological grounds must be identified with Xerxes. This, when taken in conjunction with the facts concerning Belteshazzar, suggests that the author or editor fell into three errors, by supposing (1) that the con queror of Babylon was not Cyrus but Darius I. ; (2) that Darius I. came after, instead of before, Xerxes; and (3) that he was son, whereas he was really father, of that monarch. There are two " undesigned coincidences," to be men tioned presently, which appear to confirm this view. Thus far the evidence preponderates against the theory that the narratives in the book of Daniel or, to be quite safe, let us say the narratives in their present form were written by a resident in Babylon. Two other historical inaccuracies ought not to be slurred over, though they are certainly unfavourable to the authorship of Daniel. One is the chronological statement in i. 1. It may fairly be urged (a) that, if the battle of Carchemish took place in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (Jer. xlvi. 2), Jerusalem cannot have been captured in the third ; and (6) that our one certainly contemporary authority, the prophet Jeremiah, nowhere alludes to a captivity at this period. The other is the statement (vi. 1) that Darius the Mede appointed 120 satraps (so in the Hebrew), whereas Darius Hystaspis only mentions 23 satrapies (Records of the Past, vii. 88). A similar apparent confusion between satrapies and inferior governments appears in the Alexandrine translation of 1 Kings x. 15. This translation was made in the Greek period ; presumably, therefore, the book of Daniel was written (or edited) in the Greek period. This, it should be added, is one of the " undesigned coincidences " which con firm a view mentioned above respecting " Darius the Mede." We now go on to a class of arguments, which, even more obstinately than those based upon history, refuse to lend themselves to theological prepossession. From the Hebrew of the book of Daniel . no important in ference as to its date can safely be drawn. It is true, Aramaisms abound, but this feature is common to all the later books of the Old Testament. Nor, in spite of the assertions of controversial writers on both sides, can any argument be based on the fact (strange as it seems) that the book of Daniel is written in two languages or dialects, i. 1-ii. 4a and viii.-xii. being in Hebrew, and ii. 46 vii. 28 in Aramaic (miscalled Chaldee). The philological data (which will be found collected in Dr Pusey s Daniel the Prophet, pp. Ixvii. 44-57) have been most variously interpreted. Hitzig inferred that the Aramaic of Daniel was later than that of Ezra ; Hengstenberg, Dr Pusey, and especially the late Professor McGill, that Ezra s was later than Daniel s. But the truth seems to be that the evidence is insufficient to determine the question. The Massorites aimed at making the language of the Old Testament (Aramaic as well as Hebrew) uniform, though they did not carry out their plan thoroughly, and allowed not a few vestiges of older stages of the language to remain. It is impossible therefore to decide ex cathedra that the later forms in Daniel or Ezra have not arisen from this levelling procedure of the Jewish critics. A similar controversy has arisen as to the relation of the Aramaic of the Old Testament to that of the Targums. Dr Pusey and others maintain that they are separated by a wide interval of time ; but recent researches have shown that the official Targum, or Aramaic translation, of the Pentateuch, the earlier historical books, and the prophets, was thrown into its present form at Babylon on the basis of a work composed in Palestine. Now the Aramaic of Babylon was different from that of Palestine ; still, on the whole, as Noldeke rightly says, the Aramaic of the official Targum is only a rather later development of the Aramaic of Daniel and Ezra, which is therefore presumably Palestinian. It does not, however, follow that the whole book was written in Palestine. The correct translation of Dan. ii. 4 seems to be " And the Chaldeans spoke unto the king (Aramaic);" i.e., that which follows from this point to the end of chap. vii. is extracted from an Aramaic

document. Now, considering the careless treatment