Bi-Weekly report: The Historicity of Daniel

In light of what Gary had to say about the Book of Daniel, I wanted to share some articles that dealt with the time period in which it was written.

Article 1:

Tektonics: Daniel Defense

At the beginning, J.P. talks about the Maccabean theory:

Generally, the Maccabeean theory holds that the Book of Daniel was written around 168-165 B.C. Most modern radical critics hold that the book was completed in it’s final form at that time, but some allow for parts of Daniel (mainly chapters 1-6) to have an earlier date prior to 168-165. Some say the editor in the 2nd century used certain traditions to compose the final form of Daniel.

This next article (published in 1992 by the late Dr. Gerhard Hasel) focuses on evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls:

BiblicalArchaeology.org: New Light on Daniel from Dead Sea Scrolls

Here was his conclusion:

Thus the canonical acceptance of the book of Daniel at Qumran suggests an earlier origin of the book than the second century B.C. In 1969, based on the evidence available at the time regarding the Qumran Daniel texts, Roland K. Harrison had already concluded that the second century dating of the book of Daniel was “absolutely precluded by the evidence from Qumran, partly because there are no indications whatever that the sectaries compiled any of the Biblical manuscripts recovered from the site, and partly because there would, in the latter event, have been insufficient time for Maccabean compositions to be circulated, venerated, and accepted as canonical Scripture by a Maccabean sect” (Harrison 1969: 1127).

Subsequent to this, he stated that based on the Qumran manuscripts, “there can no longer be any possible reason for considering the book as a Maccabean product” (Harrison 1979: 862). The most recent publications of Daniel manuscripts confirm this conclusion.

For this next article, I decided to see what Glenn Miller of The Christian Think Tank had to say about it. I did a search on his website, and this was the first article I found:

http://christianthinktank.com/qwhendan3a.html

He is in the midst of re-writing his Daniel dating material, but this article is still up. In it, he says something about paradigms in scholarly discussion in dealing with the manuscript evidence:

This is not, of course, to assert that all who hold to a late-date of Daniel are anti-supernaturalists! There are many good, “moderate” evangelicals who hold to this view--although I suspect it is more often due to the realities of controlling paradigms in scholarly discussion. Controlling paradigms are necessary for extended research, and actually for finding the holes in the paradigm. For specialists outside of a specific field (e.g. paleography), trying to utilize insights and results from a different field (e.g., Danielic studies), dependence on the latter’s controlling paradigms may be the only option--there being no practical way for them to validate it outside of their specialty. So, by themselves, they are not ‘evil’. But when the paradigm becomes a ‘social force’ against renewal, innovation, new paradigm suggestion, and self-critical analysis, it takes it’s place in the hall of “stifling and oppressive traditions”…In the final section of this series, I will show how I think a late-date view can be harmonized (in good conscience) with high-views of Scripture and Jesus’ words in the Gospels. I think the position is difficult to maintain, but I do feel that it can be granted as possible/ reasonable.