Porphyry found no successor in his views until the time of the English deists, when Collins at tempted to attack the authenticity of Daniel, as was done by Semler in Germany. After this a few critics, such as J. D. Michaelis, and Eichhorn, dis puted the authenticity of the six first chapters. The learned Swiss, Corrodi, went still farther, and, reviving the views of Porphyry, questioned the genuineness of the whole book. The strongest, most elaborate, and erudite attacks against the book, came from the pens of Bertholdt, Bleek, De Wette, Lengerke, and others. But there have also not been wanting voices in its defence, such as those of Liiderwald, Staiidlin, Jahn, Lack, Steudel, Hengstenberg, Havernick, and others.
The arguments advanced against the genuine character of Daniel are more directed against the internal than external evidence of the work.
The wonders and prophecies recorded in it are always the foremost stumbling-block, and much objection is made to them. The contents of the historical part is declared to be fictitious, and re plete with improbabilities—nay, even with his torical inaccuracies, such as the sketches regarding the relations of the sacerdotal order, the sages and astrologers (ii. 2 ; iv. 7 ; v. 7- r5), the mention of Darius the Mede (vi. I ; ix. 1 ; xi. 1), and the regulations concerning the satraps (iii. 3 ; vi. 2, etc.) In the prophetic part particular objection is taken to the apocalyptic character of the book, by which it differs from all the other books of the Prophets. Not less suspicious, in their eyes, is the circumstance that all the accounts in it relating to very remote future events, and the fate of empires which had not then yet risen into existence, are described in so positive and exact a manner, and with so much circumstantial detail, even to the very date of their occurrence. Yet, as this does not extend farther than the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, it will naturally lead to the conclusion of vaticinia post eventum.' Other objections against the genuineness of the book are, that Daniel is frequently spoken of in it in high terms of respect and honour (i. 17, 19, sq. ; v. II, sq. ; vi. 4 ; ix. 23 ; x. 11, etc.) ; that the language, both Hebrew and Chaldaean, is very corrupt, and that the Greek words occurring in them (iii. 5, 7, 10) naturally betray the book to have been written in a later age, at least the Alexandrian, when Greek words began to be introduced into Asia ; that the doctrines in the book, the Angelology (iv. 14 ; ix.
21 ; X. 13, 21), Christology (Vii. 13, sq.; XI I, sq.), the ascetic discipline (i. 8, sq.), also betray a later
age ; that the book stands in the canon in the Hagiographa, a proof that it had become known only after the collection of the Prophets had been completed ; a suspicion which is still more strength ened by the circumstance that the name of Daniel is wanting in the book of Sirach, ch. xlix., proba bly because the book of Daniel did not then exist.
These few objections have been variously met and confuted. They rest, to a great extent, partly on historical errors, partly on the want of a sound exegesis, and lastly, on the perversion of a few pas sages in the text. Thus it has turned out that several of the arguments have led to a far different and even opposite result from what was originally meant, namely, to the defence of the authenticity of the book. The existence, ex. gr., of a King Darius of the Medians, mentioned in ch. vi., is a thorough historical fact, and the very circumstance that such an insignificant prince, eclipsed as his name was by the splendour of Cyrus, and therefore unnoticed in the fabulous and historical chronicles of Persia, should be known and mentioned in this book, is in itself a proof of the high historical authority of Daniel. Nor does the whole dogmatic tenor of the book speak less in favour of its genuineness, since the dogmatic spirit of the Maccahrean period is essentially different from that which it exhibits, as, ex. gr., in the Christology, which forms the substance and basis of Daniel.
The following are the more important of the arguments which evidence the genuineness of the book: I. The existence and authority of the book are most decidedly testified by the N. T. Christ him self refers to it (Matt. xxiv. t5), and gives himself (in virtue of the expression in Dan. vii. 13) the name of Son of Man ; while the Apostles re peatedly appeal to it as an authority (ex. gr., I Cor. vi. 1 ; 2 Thess. ii. 3 ; Heb. xi. 33, sq.) To the objection that Christ and the writers of the N. T. are here no real authority, inasmuch as they accom modate themselves to the Jewish notions and views, we reply that the genuineness of the book of Daniel is so closely connected with the truth of its contents—in other words, that the authenticity of the book is so immediately connected with its authority— that it is impossible to doubt the genuineness, without suspecting at the same time a wilful fraud and cheat in its contents ; so that the accommodation in this case to national views would be tantamount to wilfully confirming and sanctioning an unpardonable fraud.