2. The period of the exile would be altogether incomprehensible without the existence of a man like Daniel, exercising great influence upon his own people, and whose return to Palestine was effected by means of his high station in the state, as well as through the peculiar assistance of God with which he was favoured. Without this assump tion, it is impossible to explain the continued state of independence of the people of God during that period, or to account for the interest which Cyrus took in their affairs. The exile and its termination are indicative of uncommon acts of God towards highly gifted and favoured men, and the appear ance of such a man as Daniel is described in that book to have been, is an indispensable requisite for the right understanding of this portion of the Jew ish history.
3. An important hint of the existence of the book in the time of Alexander is found in Josephus, "Wig. xi. 8, 5, according to which the prophecies of Daniel had been pointed out to that king on his entrance into Jerusalem. It is true that the fact may have been somewhat embellished in its details by Josephus, yet it is historically undeniable that Alexander did bestow great favours on the Jews, a circumstance which is not easily explained with out granting the fact recorded by Josephus to be true in the main.
4. The first book of the Maccabees, which is almost contemporary with the events related in it, not only pre-supposes the existence of the book of Daniel, but actually betrays acquaintance with the Alexandrian version of the same (r Maccab. i. 54 ; comp. Dan. ix. 27 ; ii. 59 ' • comp. Dan. iii. )—a proof that the book must have been written long before that period.
5. If the book had been written in the Mac cabman period, there would probably have been produced in that period some similar prophetic and apocalyptic productions, composed by Palestine Jews. Of such, however, not the slightest notice can anywhere be found, so that our book—if of the Maccabman time—thus forms an isolated enigmatic phenomenon in the later Jewish litera ture.
6. The reception of the book into the canon is also an evidence of its authenticity. In the Mac cabman age the canon had long been completed and closed, but even doubting that point, it is not likely that, at a time when so much scrupulous ad herence was shewn towards all that was hallowed by time and old usage, and when Scriptural litera ture was already flourishing—it is not probable, we say, that a production then recent should have been raised to the rank of a canonical book.
7. We have an important testimony for the authenticity of the book in Ezek. xiv. 14-20 ; xxviii. 3. Daniel is there represented as an un usual character, as a model of justice and wisdom, to whom had been allotted superior divine insight and revelation. This sketch perfectly agrees with that contained in our book.
8. The book betrays such an intimate acquaint ance with Chaldman manners, customs, history, and religion, as none but a contemporary writer could fairly be supposed to possess. Thus, ex. gr., the description of the Chaldman =glans, and their regulations, perfectly agrees with the accounts of the classics respecting them. The account of the illness and insanity of Nebuchadnezzar is confirmed by Berosus (in Joseph. c. Apion. i. zo). The edict of Darius the Mede (Dan. vi.) may be satis factorily explained from the notions peculiar to the Medo-Persian religion, and the importance at tached in it to the king, who was considered as a sort of incarnate deity.
9. The religious views, the ardent belief in the Messiah, the purity of that belief, the absence of all the notions and ceremonial practices of later Judmism, etc., the agreement of the book in these respects with the genuine prophetic hooks, and more especially with the prophets in and after the exile—all this testifies to the genuineness of Daniel.
to. The linguistic character of the book is most decisive for its authenticity. In the first instance, the language in it, by turns Hebrew and Aramman, is particularly remarkable. In that respect the book bears a close analogy to that of Ezra. The author must certainly have been equally conversant with both languages—an attainment exactly suited to a Hebrew living in the exile, but not in the least so to an author in the Maccabman age, when the Hebrew had long since ceased to be a living lan guage, and had been supplanted by the Aramaean vernacular dialect. The Hebrew in Daniel bears, moreover, a verygreat affinity to that in the other later books of the 0. T. ; and has, in particular, idioms in common with Ezekiel. The Aramaic also in the book differs materially from the prevailing dialect of the later Chaldman paraphrastic versions of the 0. T., and has much more relation to the idiom of the book of Ezra.