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 Anderson, Robert 
 
 Daniel in the critics' den 
 

 DANIEL IN 
 
 THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
U y-S'. 19 1922 
 
 D A N I E L^\^^^, --^-.v^ 
 
 IN 
 
 THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 A REPLY TO PROFESSOR DRIVER OF OXFORD 
 AND THE DEAN OF CANTERBURY 
 
 / 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR ROBERT ANDERSON, K.C.B., LL.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the SILENCE OF GOD," " THE BUDDHA OF 
 
 CHRISTENDOM," " THE COMING PRINCE, OR THE 
 
 SEVENTY WEEKS OF DANIEL," ETC. ETC. 
 
 FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
 NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Although this volume appears under an old 
 title, it is practically a new work. The title 
 remains, lest any who possess my " Reply to 
 Dean Farrar's Book of Daniel " should feel 
 aggrieved on finding part of that treatise 
 reproduced under a new designation.-^ But 
 the latter half of this book is new ; and the 
 whole has been recast, in view of its main 
 purpose and aim as a reply to Professor 
 Driver's Commentary in " The Cambridge 
 Bible " series. 
 
 The appearance of Professor Driver's Book 
 of Daniel marks an epoch in the Daniel 
 controversy. Hitherto there has been no 
 work in existence which English exponents 
 of the sceptical hypothesis would accept as 
 
 ^ It appeared first as an article in Blackwood' s Magazine, 
 and afterwards separately in book form. 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 a fair and adequate expression of their views. 
 But now the oracle has spoken. The most 
 trusted champion of the Higher Criticism 
 in England has formulated the case against 
 the Book of Daniel ; and if that case can 
 be refuted — if it can be shown that its ap- 
 parent force depends on a skilful presentation 
 of doubtful evidence upon the one side, to 
 the exclusion of overwhelmingly cogent evi- 
 dence upon the other — the result ought to 
 be an "end of controversy" on the whole 
 question. 
 
 It rests with others to decide whether 
 this result is established in the following 
 pages. I am willing to stake it upon the 
 issues specified in Chapter VII. And even 
 if the reader should see fit to make that 
 chapter the starting-point of his perusal of 
 my book, I am still prepared to claim his 
 verdict in favour of Daniel. 
 
 And here I should premise, what will be 
 found more than once repeated in the 
 sequel, that the inquiry involved in the 
 
^ PREFACE Vll 
 
 Daniel controversy is essentially judicial. 
 An experienced Judge with an intelligent 
 jury — any tribunal, indeed, accustomed to 
 sift and weigh conflicting testimony — would 
 be better fitted to deal with it than a com- 
 pany of all the philologists of Christendom. 
 The philologist's proper place is in the 
 witness-chair. He can supply but a part, 
 and that by no means the most important 
 part, of the necessary evidence. And if a 
 single well-ascertained fact be inconsistent 
 with his theories, the fact must prevail. 
 But this the specialist is proverbially slow 
 to recognise. He is always apt to exag- 
 gerate the importance of his own testimony, 
 and to betray impatience when evidence of 
 another kind is allowed leg^Itimate weigfht. 
 And nowhere is this tendency more marked 
 than among the critics. 
 
 In the preface to his Continuity of Scrip- 
 ture, Lord Hatherley speaks of "the sup- 
 posed evidence on which are based some 
 very confident assertions of a self-styled 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 'higher criticism.' " And he adds, " Assum- 
 ing the learning to be profound and accurate 
 which has collected the material for much 
 critical performance, the logic by which con-, 
 elusions are deduced from those materials 
 is frequently grievously at fault, and open 
 to the judgment of all who may have been 
 accustomed to sift and weigh evidence." 
 My apology for this book is that I can 
 claim a humble place in the category de- 
 scribed in these concluding words. Long 
 accustomed to deal with evidence in diffi- 
 cult and intricate inquiries, I have set 
 myself to investigate the genuineness of 
 the Book of Daniel, and the results of my 
 inquiry are here recorded. 
 
 Lord Hatherley was not the only Lord 
 Chancellor of our time to whom earnest 
 thought and study brought a settled con- 
 viction of the Divine authority and absolute 
 integrity of Holy Scripture. The two very 
 great men who in turn succeeded him in 
 that high office, though versed in the litera- 
 
PREFACE IX 
 
 ture of the critics, held unflinchingly to the 
 same conclusion. And while some, perhaps, 
 would dismiss the judgment of men like 
 Lord Cairns and Lord Selborne as being 
 that of " mere laymen," sensible people the 
 whole world over would accept their de- 
 cision upon an intricate judicial question of 
 this kind against that of all the pundits of 
 Christendom. 
 
 As regards my attitude towards criticism, 
 I deprecate being misunderstood. Every 
 book I have written gives proof of fear- 
 lessness in applying critical methods to the 
 study of the Bible, But the Higher Criticism 
 is a mere travesty of all true criticism. Secu- 
 lar writers are presumed to be trustworthy 
 unless reason is found to discredit their 
 testimony. But the Higher Criticism starts 
 with the assumption that everything in 
 Scripture needs to be confirmed by ex- 
 ternal evidence. It reeks of its evil origin 
 in German infidelity. My indictment of it, 
 therefore, is not that it is criticism, but that 
 
X PREFACE 
 
 it is criticism of a low and spurious type, 
 akin to that for which the baser sort of 
 "Old Bailey" practitioner is famed. True 
 criticism seeks to elucidate the truth : the 
 Higher Criticism aims at establishing pre- 
 judged results. And in exposing such a 
 system the present volume has an import- 
 ance far beyond the special subject of which 
 it treats. 
 
 A single instance will suffice. The " An- 
 nalistic tablet" of Cyrus, which records his 
 conquest of Babylon, is received by the 
 critics as Gospel truth, albeit the deception 
 which underlies it would be clear even to 
 a clever schoolboy. But even as read by 
 the critics it affords confirmation of Daniel 
 which is startling in its definiteness in regard 
 to Belshazzar and Darius the Mede. It 
 tells us that the capture of the inner city 
 was marked by the death of Belshazzar, or 
 (as the inscription calls him throughout) 
 "the son of the king." And further, we 
 learn from it that Cyrus's triumph was 
 
PREFACE XI 
 
 shared by a Median of such note that his 
 name was united with his own in the pro- 
 clamation of an amnesty. And yet so fixed 
 is the determination of the critics to discredit 
 the Book of Daniel, that all this is ignored. 
 
 The inadequacy of the reasons put for- 
 ward for rejecting Daniel clearly indicate 
 that there is some potent reason of another 
 kind in the background. It was the miracu- 
 lous element in the book that set the whole 
 pack of foreign sceptics in full cry. In this 
 age of a silent heaven such men will not 
 tolerate the idea that God ever intervened 
 directly in the affairs of men. But this is 
 too large a subject for incidental treatment. 
 I have dealt with it in The Silence of God, 
 and I would refer specially to Chapter III. 
 of that work. 
 
 Other incidental questions involved in the 
 controversy I have treated of here ; but as 
 they are incidental, I have relegated them 
 to the Appendix. And if any one claims a 
 fuller discussion of them, I must ask leave 
 
Xll PREFACE 
 
 to refer to the work alluded to by Professor 
 Driver in his Book of Daniel — namely, The 
 Coming Prmce, or The Seventy Weeks of 
 Daniel. 
 
 R. A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. THE "higher criticism," AND DEAN 
 
 FARRAR's ESTIMATE OF THE BIBLE . . I 
 
 II. THE HISTORICAL ERRORS OF DANIEL . . 12 
 
 III. HISTORICAL ERRORS CONTINUED : BELSHAZ- 
 
 ZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE . . -23 
 
 IV, " PHILOLOGICAL PECULIARITIES " : THE LAN- 
 
 GUAGE OF DANIEL ..... 42 
 
 V. THE POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF 
 
 DANIEL 56 
 
 VI. "VIOLENT errors" 79 
 
 VII. PROFESSOR driver's "BOOK OF DANIEL" — 
 
 the evidence of the canon . . 92 
 
 viii. the vision of the "seventy weeks " — 
 
 the prophetic vear . . . .112 
 
 ix. the fulfilment of the vision of the 
 
 "weeks" 124 
 
 x. summary and conclusion . . -135 
 
 xiii 
 
XIV 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 APPENDICES 
 
 I. Nebuchadnezzar's first invasion of 
 JUDEA 
 
 II. THE DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR 
 
 III. THE PUNCTUATION OF DANIEL IX. 2$ 
 
 IV. THE JEWISH CALENDAR 
 V. THE TWENTIETH YEAR OF ARTAXERXES 
 
 VI. THE DATE OF THE CRUCIFIXION 
 
 153 
 
 i6o 
 167 
 171 
 
 174 
 176 
 
 VII. PROFESSOR DRIVER S INDICTMENT OF DANIEL I 79 
 
 INDEX 
 
 183 
 
Daniel in the Critics' Den 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE "higher criticism," AND DEAN FARRAr's 
 ESTIMATE OF THE BIBLE 
 
 By "all people of discernment" the "Higher 
 Criticism" is now held in the greatest repute. 
 And discernment is a quality for which the 
 dullest of men are keen to claim credit. It 
 may safely be assumed that not one person 
 in a score of those who eagerly disclaim 
 belief in the visions of Daniel has ever 
 seriously considered the question. The liter- 
 ature upon the subject is but dull reading 
 at best, and the inquiry demands a combina- 
 tion of qualities which is comparatively rare. 
 A newspaper review of some ponderous trea- 
 tise, or a frothy discourse by some popular 
 preacher, will satisfy most men. The Ger- 
 man literature upon the controversy they 
 
2 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 know nothing of, and the erudite writings 
 of scholars are by no means to their taste, 
 and probably beyond their capacity. Dean 
 Farrar's Book of Daniel therefore meets 
 a much-felt want. Ignored by scholars it 
 certainly will be, and the majority of serious 
 theologians will deplore it ; but it supplies 
 " the man in the street " with a reason for 
 the unfaith that is in him. 
 
 The narrowness with which it emphasises 
 everything that either erudition or ignorance 
 can urge upon one side of a great contro- 
 versy, to the exclusion of the rest, will 
 relieve him from the irksome task of think- 
 ing out the problem for himself; and its 
 pedantry is veiled by rhetoric of a type 
 which will admirably suit him. He can- 
 not fail to be deeply impressed by "the 
 acervation of endless conjectures," and "the 
 unconsciously disingenuous resourcefulness 
 of traditional harmonics." His acquaintance 
 with the unseen world will be enlarged by 
 discovering that Gabriel, who appeared to 
 the prophet, is "the archangel";^ and by 
 
 1 P. 275. 
 
THE " HIGHER CRITICISM " 3 
 
 learning that " it is only after the Exile that 
 we find angels and demons playing a more 
 prominent part than before, divided into 
 classes, and even marked out by special 
 names." ^ It is not easy to decide whether 
 this statement is the more astonishing when 
 examined as a specimen of English, or when 
 regarded as a dictum to guide us in the 
 study of Scripture. But all this relates only 
 to the form of the book. When we come to 
 consider its substance, the spirit which per 
 vades it, and the results to which it leads, a 
 sense of distress and shame will commingle 
 with our amazement. 
 
 What the dissecting-room is to the phy- 
 sician criticism is to the theologian. In its 
 proper sphere it is most valuable ; and it 
 has made large additions to our knowledge 
 of the Bible. But it demands not only skill 
 and care, but reverence ; and if these be 
 wanting, it cannot fail to be mischievous. 
 A man of the baser sort may become so 
 degraded by the use of the surgeon's knife 
 that he loses all respect for the body of 
 
 ' P. 191. 
 
4 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 his patient, and the sick-room is to him but 
 the antechamber to the mortuary. And can 
 we with impunity forget the reverence that 
 s due to " the Hving and eternally abiding 
 word of God " ? ^ 
 
 It behoves us to distinguish between true 
 criticism as a means to clear away from that 
 word corruptions and excrescences, and to 
 gain a more intelligent appreciation of its 
 mysteries, and the Higher Criticism as a 
 rationalistic and anti-christian crusade. The 
 end and aim of this movement is to eliminate 
 God from the Bible. It was the impure 
 growth of the scepticism which well-nigh 
 swamped the religious life of Germany in 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 Eichhorn set himself to account for the 
 miracles of Scripture. The poetic warmth 
 of oriental thought and language sufficed, in 
 his judgment, to explain them. The writers 
 wrote as they were accustomed to think, 
 leaving out of view all second causes, and 
 attributing results immediately to God. This 
 theory had its day. It obtained enthusiastic 
 
 1 I Pet. i. 23. 
 
THE " HIGHER CRITICISM " 5 
 
 acceptance for a time. But rival hypotheses 
 were put forward to dispute its sway, and at 
 last it was discarded in favour of the system 
 with which the name of De Wette is promi- 
 nently associated. The sacred writers were 
 honest and true, but their teaching was 
 based, not upon personal knowledge, still 
 less upon divine inspiration, but upon 
 ancient authorities by which they were 
 misled. Their errors were due to the ex- 
 cessive literalness with which they accepted 
 as facts the legends of earlier days. De 
 Wette, like Eichhorn, desired to rescue 
 the Bible from the reproach which had 
 fallen upon it. Upon them at least the 
 halo of departed truth still rested. But 
 others were restrained by no such influence. 
 With the ignorance of Pagans and the 
 animus of apostates they perverted the 
 Scriptures and tore them to pieces. 
 
 One of the old Psalms,^ in lamenting with 
 exquisite sadness the ruin brought by the 
 heathen upon the holy city and land, declares 
 that fame was apportioned according to zeal 
 
 ' Ps. Ixxiv. 
 
6 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 and success in the work of destruction. A 
 like spirit has animated the host of the 
 critics. It is a distressing and baneful 
 ordeal to find oneself in the company of 
 those who have no belief in the virtue of 
 women. The mind thus poisoned learns to 
 regard with suspicion the purest inmates of 
 a pure home. And a too close familiarity 
 with the vile literature of the sceptics leads 
 to a kindred distrust of all that is true and 
 holy in our most true and holy faith. Every 
 chapter of this book gives proof to what 
 an extent its author has suffered this moral 
 and spiritual deterioration ; and no one can 
 accept its teaching without sinking, imper- 
 ceptibly it may be, but surely and inevitably, 
 to the same level. Kuenen, one of the 
 worst of the foreign sceptics, is Dean Far- 
 rar's master and guide in the interpretation 
 of Daniel. And the result is that he revels 
 in puerilities and extravagances of exegesis 
 and criticism which the best of our British 
 contemporary scholars are careful to re- 
 pudiate. 
 
 The Book of Daniel is not " the work of 
 
THE "HIGHER CRITICISM" 7 
 
 a prophet in the Exile " (if indeed such a 
 personage as Daniel ever really existed), 
 " but of some faithful Chasid in the days 
 of the Seleucid tyrant."^ Its pretended 
 miracles are but moral fables. Its history 
 is but idle legend, abounding in "violent 
 errors "of the grossest kind.^ Its so-called 
 predictions alone are accurate, because they 
 were but the record of recent or contem- 
 porary events. But Dr. Farrar will not tol- 
 erate a word of blame upon "the holy and 
 gifted Jew"^ who wrote it. No thought 
 of deceiving any one ever crossed his mind.* 
 The reproach which has been heaped upon 
 him has been wholly owing to Jewish arro- 
 gance and Christian stupidity in misreading 
 his charming and elevating romance. For 
 it is not only fiction, but ^'avowed fiction,"^ 
 and was never meant to be regarded in any 
 other light. In a word, the book is nothing 
 more than a religious novel, differing from 
 other kindred works only in its venerable 
 antiquity and the multiplicity of its blunders. 
 
 ^ P. ii8. 2 p_ 45^ 
 
 3 P. 119. *Pp. 43, 85. sp. 43. 
 
8 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 Accepting these results, then, what action 
 shall we take upon them ? In proportion 
 surely to our appreciation of the precious- 
 ness of Holy Scripture, shall be our resolute- 
 ness in tearing the Book of Daniel from 
 its place in the sacred canon, and relegating 
 it to the same shelf with Bel and the Dragon 
 and The Story of Susaitna. By no means. 
 Dr. Farrar will stay our hand by the 
 assurance that — 
 
 "Those results . . . are in no way derogatory 
 to the preciousness of this Old Testament Apoca- 
 lypse." "No words of mine," he declares, "can 
 exaggerate the value which I attach to this part of 
 our Canonical Scriptures. . . . Its right to a place 
 in the Canon is undisputed and indisputable, and 
 there is scarcely a single book of the Old Testa- 
 ment which can be made more richly ' profitable 
 for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
 tion in righteousness : that the man of God may 
 be complete, completely furnished unto every good 
 work.' " 1 
 
 ■^ P. 4. Again and again throughout this volume the 
 author uses Hke words in praise of the Book of Daniel. 
 Here are a few of them : " It is indeed a noble book, full 
 of glorious lessons " (p. 36). " Its high worth and canonical 
 authority" (p. 37). "So far from undervaluing its teach- 
 ing, I have always been strongly drawn to this book of 
 
THE " HIGHER CRITICISM " 9 
 
 Christian writers who find reason to reject 
 one portion of the sacred canon or another 
 are usually eager to insist that in doing so 
 they increase the authority and enhance the 
 value of the rest. It has remained for the 
 Dean of Canterbury, in impugning the Book 
 of Daniel, to insult and degrade the Bible 
 as a whole. An expert examines for me 
 the contents of my purse. I spread out 
 nine-and-thirty sovereigns upon the table, 
 and after close inspection he marks out one 
 as a counterfeit. As I console myself 
 for the loss by the deepened confidence I 
 feel that all the rest are sterling coin, he 
 checks me by the assurance that there is 
 scarcely a single one of them which is any 
 better. The Book of Daniel is nothing 
 more than a religious novel, and it teems 
 with errors on every page, and yet we are 
 gravely told that of all the thirty-nine books 
 
 Scripture" (p. 37). "We acknowledge the canonicity of 
 the book, its high value when rightly apprehended, and 
 its rightful acceptance as a sacred book" (p. 90). And 
 most wonderful of all, at p. 118 the author declares that, 
 in exposing it as a work of fiction, "We add to its real 
 value " ! 
 
lO DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 of the Old Testament there is scarcely a 
 single book which is of any higher worth ! 
 The expert's estimate of the value of my 
 coins is clear. No less obvious is Dr. 
 Farrar's estimate of the value of the books 
 of the Bible. 
 
 It is precisely this element which renders 
 this volume so pernicious. The apostle de- 
 clares that " Every Scripture inspired of God 
 is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction in righteousness : 
 that the man of God may be complete, fur- 
 nished completely unto every good work ; 
 
 " 1 
 
 * 2 Tim. iii. i6. I quote the R.V. because it gives more 
 unequivocal testimony to the inspiration of Scripture than 
 does the A.V. According to the A.V. the apostle asserts 
 that all Scripture is inspired of God : according to the 
 R.V. he assumes this as a truth which does not need even 
 to be asserted. For " every Scripture " here means every 
 part of the Holy Scriptures mentioned in the preceding 
 sentence. Indeed, ypaf^r] has as definite a meaning in 
 N.T. Greek as " Scripture " has in English, and is never 
 used save of Holy Scripture. But I am bound in honesty 
 to add that I believe the R.V. is wrong, albeit it has the 
 authority of some of our earlier versions. The same con- 
 struction occurs in eight other passages, viz., Rom. vii. 12 ; 
 I Cor. xi. 30; 2 Cor. x. 10 ; i Tim. i. 15, ii. 3, iv. 4, 9; 
 Heb. iv. 13. Why did the Revisers not read, e.g ., " the holy 
 commandment is also just and good" (Rom. vii. 12); and 
 "many weak ones are also sickly" (i Cor. xi. 30) ? 
 
THE "HIGHER CRITICISM" II 
 
 and in profanely applying these words to a 
 romance of doubtful repute, Dr. Farrar denies 
 inspiration altogether. 
 
 But " What is inspiration ? " some one 
 may demand. In another connection the 
 inquiry might be apt ; here it is the merest 
 quibble. Plain men brush aside all the in- 
 tricacies of the controversy which the answer 
 involves, and seize upon the fact that the 
 Bible is a divine revelation. But no one 
 can yield to the spirit which pervades this 
 book without coming to raise the question, 
 "Have we a revelation at all?" The 
 Higher Criticism, as a rationalistic crusade, 
 has set itself to account for the Bible on 
 natural principles ; and this is the spirit 
 which animates the Dean of Canterbury's 
 treatise. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE HISTORICAL ERRORS OF DANIEL 
 
 '* The historical errors " of the Book of 
 Daniel are the first ground of the critic's 
 attack. Of these he enumerates the follow- 
 ing :— 
 
 (i.) "There was no deportation in the 
 third year of Jehoiakim." 
 
 (2.) "There was no King Belshazzar." 
 
 (3.) " There was no Darius the Mede." 
 
 (4.) " It is not true that there were only 
 two Babylonian kings — there were five." 
 
 (5.) "Nor were there only four Persian 
 kings — there were twelve." 
 
 (6.) Xerxes seems to be confounded with 
 the last king of Persia. 
 
 (7.) And "All correct accounts of the 
 reign of Antiochus Epiphanes seem to end 
 about B.C. 164." 
 
 Such is the indictment under this head. 
 
HISTORICAL ERRORS OF DANIEL 1 3 
 
 Two Other points are included, but these 
 have nothing to do with history ; first, that 
 the decrees of Nebuchadnezzar are extra- 
 ordinary — which may at once be conceded ; 
 and secondly, that " the notion that a 
 faithful Jew could become president of the 
 Chaldean magi is impossible" — a statement 
 which only exemplifies the thoughtless dog- 
 matism of the writer, for, according to his 
 own scheme, it was a ''holy and gifted 
 Jew" brought up under the severe ritual 
 of post-exilic days, who assigned this posi- 
 tion to Daniel. A like remark applies to 
 his criticism upon Dan. ii. 46 — with this 
 addition, that that criticism betokens either 
 carelessness or malice on the part of the 
 critics, for the passage in no way justifies 
 the assertion that the prophet accepted 
 either the worship or the sacrifice offered 
 him. 
 
 So far as the other points are concerned, 
 we may at once dismiss (4), (5), and (6), for 
 the errors here ascribed to Daniel will be 
 sought for in vain. They are "read into" 
 the book by the perverseness or ignorance 
 
14 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 of the rationalists.^ And as for (7), where 
 was the account of the reign of Antiochus 
 to end, if not in the year of his death ! 
 The statement is one of numerous in- 
 stances of sHpshod carelessness in this 
 extraordinary addition to our theological 
 literature. 
 
 The Bible states that there was a depor- 
 tation in the reign of Jehoiakim : the critic 
 asserts there was none ; and the Christian 
 must decide between them. Nothing can 
 
 * As regards (5) and (6), the way "kisses and kicks" alter- 
 nate in Dr. Farrar's treatment of his mythical " Chasid " is 
 amusing. At one moment he is praised for his genius and 
 erudition ; the next he is denounced as an ignoramus or a 
 fool ! Considering how inseparably the history of Judah 
 had been connected with the history of Persia, the sugges- 
 tion that a cultured Jew of Maccabean days could have 
 made the gross blunder here attributed to him is quite 
 unworthy of notice. 
 
 And may I explain for the enlightenment of the critics 
 that Dan. xi. 2 is a prophecy relating to the prophecy which 
 precedes it ? It is a consecutive prediction of events witJiin 
 the period of the seventy weeks. There were to be " yet " 
 {i.e., after the rebuilding of Jerusalem) " three kings in 
 Persia." These were Darius Nothus, Artaxerxes Mnemon, 
 and Ochus ; the brief and merely nominal reigns of Xerxes 
 II., Sogdianus, and Arogus being ignored — two of them, 
 indeed, being omitted from the canon of Ptolemy. "The 
 fourth" (and last) king was Darius Codomanus, whose 
 fabulous wealth attracted the cupidity of the Greeks. 
 
HISTORICAL ERRORS OF DANIEL I 5 
 
 be clearer than the language of Chronicles ; ^ 
 and, even regarding the book as a purely 
 secular record, it is simply preposterous 
 to reject without a shadow of reason the 
 chronicler's statement on a matter of such 
 immense interest and importance in the 
 national history. But, it is objected, Kings 
 and Jeremiah are silent upon the subject. 
 If this were true, which it is not, it 
 would be an additional reason for turning 
 to Chronicles to supply the omission. But 
 Kings gives clear corroboration of Chron- 
 icles. Speaking of Jehoiakim, it says: "In 
 his days Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, 
 came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant 
 three years ; then he turned and rebelled 
 against him." ^ DanieP tells us this was 
 in his third year, and that Jerusalem was 
 besieged upon the occasion. This difficulty 
 again springs from the habit of " reading 
 into " Scripture more than it says. There 
 is not a word about a taking by storm. 
 The king was a mere puppet, and presum- 
 
 ^ 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6. 
 ^ 3 Kings xxiv. i. ^ Ch. i. i, 
 
l6 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 ably he made his submission as soon as the 
 city was invested. Nebuchadnezzar took him 
 prisoner, but afterwards relented, and left him 
 in Jerusalem as his vassal, a position he had 
 till then held under the King of Egypt. 
 
 But Dr. Farrar's statements here are 
 worthy of fuller notice, so thoroughly typi- 
 cal are they of his style and methods. For 
 three years Jehoiakim was Nebuchadnezzar's 
 vassal. This is admitted, and Scripture 
 accounts for it by recording a Babylonian 
 invasion in his third year. But, says the 
 critic : — 
 
 " It was not till the following year, when Nebu- 
 chadrezzar, acting as his father's general, had 
 defeated Egypt at the battle of Carchemish, that 
 any siege of Jerusalem would have been pos- 
 sible. Nor did Nebuchadrezzar advance against 
 the Holy City even after the battle of Carchemish, 
 but dashed home across the desert to secure the 
 crown of Babylon on hearing the news of his father's 
 death." 
 
 The idea of dashing across the desert 
 from Carchemish to Babylon is worthy of 
 a board- school essay! The critic is here 
 adopting the record of the Babylonian 
 
HISTORICAL ERRORS OF DANIEL 1 7 
 
 historian Berosus, in complete unconscious- 
 ness of the significance of his testimony. 
 We learn from Berosus that it was as Prince- 
 royal of Babylon, at the head of his father's 
 army, that Nebuchadnezzar invaded Palestine. 
 And, after recording how in the course of 
 that expedition Nebuchadnezzar heard of 
 his father's death, the historian goes on to 
 relate that he " committed the captives he 
 had take7t from the Jews'' to the charge 
 of others, "while he went in haste over the 
 desert to Babylon."^ Could corroboration of 
 Scripture be more complete and emphatic ? 
 The fact that he had Jewish captives is 
 evidence that he had invaded Judea. Proof 
 of it is afforded by the further fact that 
 the desert lay between him and Babylon. 
 Carchemish was in the far north by the 
 Euphrates, and the road thence to the 
 Chaldean capital lay clear of the desert 
 altogether. Moreover, the battle of Car- 
 chemish was fought in Jehoiakim's fourth 
 year, and therefore after Nebuchadnezzar's 
 accession, whereas the invasion of Judea was 
 
 ^ Josephus, Contra Apion, i. 19. 
 
 B 
 
1 8 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 during Nabopolassar's lifetime, and therefore 
 in Jehoiakim's third year, precisely as the 
 Book of Daniel avers/ 
 
 It only remains to add that Scripture no- 
 where speaks of 2. general " deportation " in 
 the third year of Jehoiakim. Here, as else- 
 where, the critic attributes his own errors 
 to the Bible, and then proceeds to refute 
 them. The narrative is explicit that on 
 this occasion Nebuchadnezzar returned with 
 no captives save a few cadets of the royal 
 house and of the noble families. But Dr. 
 Farrar writes: ''Among the captives were 
 certain of the king's seed and of the princes." 
 Nor is this all : he goes on to say, " They 
 are called 'children,' and the word, together 
 with the context, seems to imply that they 
 were boys of the age of from twelve to four- 
 teen." What Daniel says is that these, the 
 only captives, were "skilful in all wisdom, and 
 
 1 The question of course arises how this battle should 
 have been fought after the successful campaign of the pre- 
 ceding year. There are reasonable explanations of this, but 
 I offer none. Scripture has suffered grievously from the 
 eagerness of its defenders to put forward hypotheses to 
 explain seeming difficulties. 
 
HISTORICAL ERRORS OF DANIEL 1 9 
 
 cunning in knowledge, and understanding 
 science." What prodigies those Jewish 
 boys must have been ! The word trans- 
 lated " children " in the A.V. is more cor- 
 rectly rendered "youths" in the R.V. Its 
 scope may be inferred from the use of it in 
 I Kings xii, 8, which tells us that Reho- 
 boam "forsook the counsel of the old men, 
 and took counsel with the young men that 
 were grown up with him." This last point 
 is material mainly as showing the animus 
 of the critic.^ 
 
 But the Scripture speaks of King Nebu- 
 chadnezzar in the third year of Jehoiakim, 
 whereas it was not till his fourth year that 
 Nabopolassar died. No doubt. And a 
 writer of Maccabean days, with the history 
 of Berosus before him, would probably have 
 
 ^ The only reason for representing Daniel as a mere boy 
 of twelve or fourteen is that thereby discredit is cast upon 
 the statement that three years later he was placed at the 
 head of " the wise men " of Babylon. It is with a real sense 
 of distress and pain that I find myself compelled to use such 
 language. But it would need a volume to expose the errors, 
 misstatements, and perversions of which the above are typi- 
 cal instances. They occur in every chapter of Dr. Farrar's 
 book. 
 
20 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 noticed the point. But the so-called in- 
 accuracy is precisely one of the incidental 
 proofs that the Book of Daniel was the work 
 of a contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar. The 
 historian of the future will never assert that 
 Queen Victoria lived at one time in Ken- 
 sington Palace, though the statement will 
 be found in the newspapers which recorded 
 the unveiling of her statue in Kensington 
 Gardens. 
 
 The references to Jeremiah raise the ques- 
 tion whether the book records the utterances 
 of an inspired prophet, or whether, as Dr. 
 Farrar's criticisms assume, the author of the 
 book wrote merely as a religious teacher.^ 
 This question, however, is too large to treat 
 of here ; and the discussion of it is wholly un- 
 necessary, for the careful student will find in 
 Jeremiah the clearest proof that Scripture is 
 right and the critics wrong. The objection 
 
 ' The careful reader of Dr. Farrar's book will not fail to 
 see that his references to the Scriptures generally imply 
 that the prophecies came by the will of the prophets ; 
 whereas Holy Scripture declares that " No prophecy ever 
 came by the will of man ; but men spake from God, being 
 moved by the Holy Ghost" (2 Pet. i. 20, 21). 
 
HISTORICAL ERRORS OF DANIEL 2 1 
 
 depends on confounding the seventy years 
 of the "Servitude to Babylon" with the 
 seventy years of " the Desolations of Jeru- 
 salem" — another of the numerous blunders 
 which discredit the work under review/ 
 " The Captivity," which is confounded with 
 both, was not an era of seventy years at all. 
 The prophecy of the twenty-fifth chapter 
 of Jeremiah was a warning addressed to the 
 people who remained in the land after the 
 servitude had begun, that if they continued 
 impenitent and rebellious, God would bring 
 upon them a further judgment — the terrible 
 scourge of "the Desolations." The pro- 
 phecy of the twenty-ninth chapter was a 
 message of hope to the Jews of the Captivity. 
 And what was that message? That "after 
 seventy years be accomplished for Babylon, 
 I will visit you, and perform my good word 
 toward you, in causing you to return to this 
 place." ^ And that promise was faithfully 
 
 1 p. 289, 
 
 2 Jer. xxix. 10, R.V. The word \s for {noi at) Babylon. 
 These " seventy years " dated, not from their deportation to 
 Babylonia as captives, but from their subjection to the 
 suzerainty of Babylon. 
 
22 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 fulfilled. The Servitude began in the third 
 year of Jehoiakim, b.c. 606.^ It ended in 
 B.C. 536, when Cyrus issued his decree for 
 the return of the exiles. By the test of 
 chronology, therefore — the severest test 
 which can be applied to historical state- 
 ments — the absolute accuracy of these 
 Scriptures is established.^ 
 
 ^ That is, the year beginning with Nisan, B.C. 606, and 
 ending with Adar, B.C. 605. 
 
 2 Owing to the importance of this Jehoiakim "error" I 
 have added an excursus upon the subject. See Appendix I. 
 p. iSZ,post. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 HISTORICAL ERRORS CONTINUED I BEL- 
 SHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 
 
 Professor Driver acknowledges " the pos- 
 sibility that Nabunahid may have sought 
 to strengthen his position by marrying a 
 daughter of Nebuchadnezzar, in which case 
 the latter might be spoken of as Belshazzar's 
 father ( = grandfather, by Hebrew usage)." ^ 
 And the author of the Ancient Monarchies^ 
 our best historical authority here, tells us 
 that Nabonidus (Nabunahid) " had associated 
 with him in the government his son Belshazzar 
 or Bel-shar-uzur, the grandson of the great 
 Nebuchadnezzar," and " in his father's ab- 
 sence Belshazzar took the direction of affairs 
 within the city."^ The only question, there- 
 fore, is whether Belshazzar, being thus left 
 as regent at Babylon when his father was 
 
 ^ Book of Daniel, p. li. 
 
 ^ Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies^ vol. iii. p. 70. 
 
 23 
 
24 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 absent at Borsippa in command of the army, 
 would be addressed as king. But Dr. 
 Farrar settles the matter by asserting that 
 " there was no King Belshazzar," and that 
 Belshazzar was "conquered in Borsippa."^ 
 This last statement is a mere blunder. 
 
 The accuracy of Daniel in this matter is 
 confirmed in a manner which is all the more 
 striking because it is wholly incidental. Why 
 did Belshazzar purpose to make Daniel the 
 third ruler in the kingdom ? The natural 
 explanation is, that he himself was but 
 second. 
 
 " Unhappily for their very precarious hypo- 
 thesis," Dr. Farrar remarks, "the translation 
 ' third ruler ' appears to be entirely untenable. 
 It means * one of a board of three.' " ^ As 
 a test of the author's erudition and candour 
 this deserves particular notice. Every scholar, 
 of course, is aware that there is not a word 
 about a " board of three " in the text. This 
 is exegesis, not translation. But is it correct 
 exegesis ? 
 
 Under the Persian rule there was a cabinet 
 
 1 P. 54- ' P- 57- 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 2$ 
 
 of three, as the sixth chapter tells us ; but 
 there is no authority whatever for supposing 
 such a body existed under the empire which 
 it supplanted. As regards chapter v., it will 
 satisfy most people to know that the render- 
 ing which Dr. Farrar declares to be "entirely 
 untenable " has been adopted by the Old Tes- 
 tament company of Revisers. And I have 
 been at the pains to ascertain that the pas- 
 sage was carefully considered, that they had 
 no difficulty in deciding in favour of the read- 
 ing of the A. v., and that it was not until 
 their final revision that the alternative ren- 
 dering "one of three " was admitted into the 
 margin. In the distinguished Professor 
 Kautzsch's recent work on the Old Testa- 
 ment,^ representing the latest and best Ger- 
 man scholarship, he adheres to the rendering 
 ** third ruler in the kingdom," and his note is, 
 "either as one of three over the whole king- 
 dom, or as third by the side of the king and 
 the king's mother." Behrmann, too, in his 
 recent commentary, adopts the same read- 
 ing — "as third he was to have authority 
 
 ^ Die Heili^e Schrift des Alien Testaments. 
 
26 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 in the kingdom," and adds a note referring 
 to the king and his mother as first and 
 second.^ 
 
 This surely will suffice to silence the 
 critic's objection, and to cast suspicion 
 upon his fairness as a controversialist.^ 
 
 But, we are told, the archaeological dis- 
 coveries of the last few years dispose of the 
 whole question, and compel us entirely to 
 
 ^ In reply to an inquiry I addressed to him, the Chief 
 Rabbi wrote to me as follows : " I have carefully considered 
 the question you laid before me at our pleasant meeting on 
 Sunday relative to the correct interpretation of the passages 
 in Daniel, chapter v., verses 7 and 16. I cannot absolutely 
 find fault with Archdeacon Farrar for translating the words 
 ' the third part of the kingdom,' as he follows herein two of 
 our Hebrew commentators of great repute, Rashi and Ibn 
 Ezra. On the other hand, others of our commentators, such 
 as Saadia, Jachja, &c., translate this passage as ' he shall be 
 the third ruler in the kingdom.' This rendering seems to 
 be more strictly in accord with the literal meaning of the 
 words as shown by Dr. Winer in his Grammatik des Chal- 
 daismus. It also receives confirmation from Sir Henry 
 Rawlinson's remarkable discovery, according to which Bel- 
 shazzar was the eldest son of King Nabonidus, and asso- 
 ciated with him in the government, so that the person next 
 in honour would be the third." 
 
 2 This applies equally to Prof. Driver's note, which says 
 " The rendering of A.V. is certainly untenable." And his 
 reference to the LXX. is unfair, seeing that his view is refuted 
 by the version of Theodotion, which is of higher authority 
 than that to which he appeals. 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 2/ 
 
 reconstruct the traditional history of the 
 Persian conquest of Babylon. "We now 
 possess the actual records of Nabonidos and 
 Cyrus," Professor Sayce tells us, and he 
 adds, "They are records the truth of which 
 cannot be doubted."^ What "simple child- 
 like faith " these good men have in ancient 
 records. Holy Scripture only excepted ! The 
 principal record here in question is "the 
 Annalistic tablet of Cyrus," an inscription of 
 which the transparent design is to represent 
 his conquest of Babylon as the fulfilment of 
 a divine mission, and the realisation of the 
 wishes of the conquered. And any docu- 
 ment of the kind, whether dated in the sixth 
 century B.C. or the nineteenth century a.d., 
 is open to grave suspicion, and should be 
 received with caution. Even kings may 
 pervert the truth, and State-papers may 
 falsify facts ! But even assuming its ac- 
 curacy, it in no way supports the conclusions 
 which are based upon it. No advance will 
 be made towards a solution of these ques- 
 
 1 The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monu- 
 ments, p. 498. 
 
2 8 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 tions until our Christian scholars shake 
 themselves free from the baneful influence 
 of the sceptics, whose blind hostility to Holy 
 Scripture unfits them for dealing with any 
 controversy of the kind. The following is 
 a typical instance of the effect of the influ- 
 ence I deprecate : — 
 
 " But Belshazzar never became king in his 
 father's place. No mention is made of him at 
 the end of the Annahstic tablet, and it would 
 therefore appear that he was no longer in com- 
 mand of the Babylonian army when the invasion 
 of Cyrus took place. Owing to the unfortunate 
 lacuna in the middle of the tablet we have no 
 account of what became of him, but since we are 
 told not only of the fate of Nabonidos, but also 
 of the death of his wife, it seems probable that 
 Belshazzar was dead. At any rate, when Cyrus 
 entered Babylonia he had already disappeared 
 from history. Here, then, the account given by 
 the Book of Daniel is at variance with the testi- 
 mony of the inscriptions. But the contradictions 
 do not end here. The Biblical story implies that 
 Babylon was taken by storm ; at all events it ex- 
 pressly states that ' the king of the Chaldeans was 
 slain.' Nabonidos, the Babylonian king, however, 
 was not slain, and Cyrus entered Babylon *in 
 peace.' Nor was Belshazzar the son of Nebuchad- 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 29 
 
 rezzar, as we are repeatedly told in the fifth 
 chapter of Daniel." 1 
 
 May I criticise the critic ? Daniel no- 
 where avers that Belshazzar became king in 
 his father's place. On the contrary, it clearly 
 implies that he reigned as his father's vice- 
 roy. Daniel nowhere suggests that he was 
 in command of the Babylonian army. The 
 Annalistic tablet, on the other hand, tells us 
 that Nabonidus was at the head of the army, 
 and that he was at Sippara when the Persian 
 invasion took place, and fled when that town 
 
 ^ The Higher Criticism and the Verdict of the Monu- 
 ments, pp. 525, 526. This last point is typical of the 
 inaccuracy and pertinacity of the critics. We are nowhere 
 told in Daniel that Belshazzar was the son of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar. We are told that he was so addressed at the Court 
 of Babylon, which is a wholly different matter. He was 
 probably a descendant of the great king, but it is certain 
 that if, rightly or wrongly, he claimed relationship with him, 
 no one at his court would dispute the claim. In a table 
 of Babylonian kings I find mention of a daughter of 
 Nebuchadnezzar who married the father of Nabonidus 
 {Trajis. Vict. Inst., vol. xviii. p. 99). This of course would 
 dispose of the whole difficulty. She, perhaps, was "the 
 king's mother," whose death eight years before was followed 
 by national mourning {Annal. Tablet). To trade on the 
 word " son " is a mere quibble ad captandum vulgus, which 
 has been exposed again and again. (See Pusey's Daniel, 
 p. 405, and Rawlinson's Egypt and Babylon, p. 155.) 
 
30 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 opened its gates to the invaders. To the 
 fact that more than half of the inscription is 
 lost Professor Sayce attributes the absence 
 of all mention of Belshazzar. And yet he 
 goes on to assume, without a shadow of evi- 
 dence, that he had died before the date of 
 the expedition ; and upon this utterly base- 
 less conjecture he founds the equally baseless 
 assertion that " Daniel is at variance with 
 the testimony of the inscriptions " ! As a 
 matter of fact, however, the tablet is not 
 silent about Belshazzar. On the contrary, it 
 expressly refers to him, and records his death. 
 But to resume. Daniel nowhere avers that 
 " Babylon was taken by storm." Neither is 
 it said, "the king of the Chaldeans was 
 slain " ; the words are explicit that " Bel- 
 shazzar, the Chaldean king, was slain." 
 How his death was brought about we are 
 not told. He may have fallen in repelling 
 an assault upon the palace, or his death 
 may have been caused in furtherance of the 
 priestly conspiracy in favour of Cyrus, or 
 the "wise men" may have compassed it in 
 revenge for the preferment of Daniel. 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 3 1 
 
 All this is mere conjecture. Scripture 
 merely tells us that he was slain, and that 
 Darius the Mede, aged about sixty-two, 
 ''received the kingdom." The same word 
 occurs again in ii. 6 ("Ye shall receive of me 
 gifts," &c.), and in vii. i8 ("The saints of 
 the Most High shall receive the kingdom"). 
 No word could more fitly describe the en- 
 thronement of a vassal king or viceroy. No 
 language could be more apt to record a 
 peaceful change of dynasty, such as, accord- 
 ing to some of the students of the inscrip- 
 tions, took place when Nabonidus lost the 
 throne. 
 
 But this is not all ; and the sequel may 
 well excite the reader's astonishment. First, 
 we are asked to draw inferences from the 
 silence of this document, though we possess 
 but mutilated fragments of it, and, for ought 
 we know, the lost portions may have con- 
 tained matter to refute these very inferences. 
 And secondly, accepting the contents of the 
 fragments which remain, the allegation that 
 they contradict the Book of Daniel has no 
 better foundation than Professor Sayce's 
 
32 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 heretical reading of them ; and if we appeal 
 to a more trustworthy guide, we shall find 
 that, so far from being inconsistent with the 
 sacred narrative, they afford the most striking 
 confirmation of its truth. 
 
 According to this tablet, " Sippara was 
 taken without fighting, and Nabonidus fled." 
 This was on the 14th day of Tammuz ; ^ 
 and on the i6th, "Gobryas and the soldiers 
 of Cyrus entered Babylon without fighting." 
 On the 3rd day of Marchesvan, that is, four 
 months later," Cyrus himself arrived. Fol- 
 lowing this comes the significant statement : 
 "The nth day of Marchesvan, during the 
 night, Gobryas was on the bank of the river. 
 The son of the king died'' ; or, as Professor 
 Driver reads it, " Gubaru 7nade an assault^ 
 and slew the kings son.''^ Then follows the 
 mention of the national mourning and of 
 the State burial conducted by Cambyses, 
 the son of Cyrus, in person. But instead of 
 "the son of the king," Professor Sayce here 
 reads "the wife of the king," and upon this 
 
 ^ June — July. ^ October — November. 
 
 •' .See p. 36, post. 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 33 
 
 error rests the entire superstructure of his 
 attack upon the accuracy of Daniel/ 
 
 Nor is this all. The main statements in 
 the tablet may reasonably be accepted. We 
 may assume that the Persian troops entered 
 Sippara on the 14th Tammuz, and reached 
 Babylon on the i6th. But the assertion that 
 in both cases the entry was peaceful will, of 
 course, be received with reserve. Professor 
 Sayce, however, would have us believe it all 
 implicitly, and he goes on to assert that 
 Cyrus was King of Babylon from the 14th 
 Tammuz, and therefore that Daniel's men- 
 tion of the death of Belshazzar and the 
 accession of Darius the Mede is purely 
 mythical. He dismisses to a footnote the 
 awkward fact that we have commercial 
 tablets dated in the reign of Nabonidus 
 throughout the year, and even after the 
 arrival of Cyrus himself; and his gloss upon 
 this fact is that it gives further proof that 
 the change of dynasty was a peaceful one ! 
 It gives proof clear and conclusive that 
 during this period Nabonidus was still recog- 
 
 ^ See Appendix II., p. i6o, post. 
 
34 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 nised as king, and therefore that Cyrus was 
 not yet master of the city. As a matter of 
 fact we have not a single "Cyrus" tablet in 
 this year dated from Babylon. All, with one 
 exception, the source of which is not known, 
 were made in Sippara.^ 
 
 But who was this personage whose death 
 was the occasion of a great national mourn- 
 ing and a State funeral ? As the context 
 shows clearly that "the king" referred to 
 was not Cyrus, he can have been no other 
 than Nabonidus ; and as "the king's son," 
 so frequently mentioned in the earlier frag- 
 ments of the inscription and in the contract 
 tablets, is admittedly Belshazzar," there is 
 no reason whatever to doubt that it was 
 he whose death and obsequies are here 
 recorded. 
 
 What then does all this lead us to ? The 
 careful and impartial historian, repudiating 
 the iconoclastic zeal of the controversialist, 
 will set himself to consider how these facts 
 can be harmonised with other records sacred 
 
 ^ See p. \6i\, post. 
 ^ Sayce, p. 525. 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 35 
 
 and profane ; and the task will not prove a 
 difficult one. Accepting the fact that at the 
 time of the Persian invasion Nabonidus was 
 absent from Babylon, he will be prepared to 
 find that "the king's son" held command in 
 the capital as viceroy. Accepting the fact 
 that the Persian army entered Babylon in 
 the month Tammuz, and that Cyrus arrived 
 four months later, but yet that Nabonidus 
 was still recognised as king, he will explain 
 the seeming paradox by inferring that the 
 invaders were in possession only of a part 
 of the vast city of Nebuchadnezzar, and that 
 Belshazzar, surrounded by his court and the 
 wealthy classes of the community, still re- 
 fused to yield. Accepting the fact that 
 Cyrus desired to represent his conquest 
 as a bloodless one, he will be prepared to 
 assume that force was resorted to only after 
 a long delay and when diplomacy was ex- 
 hausted. And he will not be surprised to 
 find that when at last, either in an attack 
 upon the palace, or by some act of treachery 
 in furtherance of the cause of the invaders, 
 " Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain," 
 
36 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 the fact was veiled by the euphemistic an- 
 nouncement that "the king's son died."^ 
 
 But while the record is thus shown to be 
 entirely consistent with Daniel, so far as the 
 mention of Belshazzar is concerned, what 
 room does it leave for Darius the Mede? 
 The answer is that the inscription fails us at 
 this precise point. " The rest of the text is 
 destroyed, but the fragments of it which re- 
 main indicate that it described the various 
 attempts made by Cyrus and his son Kam- 
 byses, after the overthrow of Nabonidus, 
 to settle the affairs of Babylonia and con- 
 ciliate the priesthood." Such is Professor 
 Sayce's own testimony.^ In a word, it is 
 
 1 When the fall of the Empire scattered the Secret Ser- 
 vice staff of the French Prefecture of Police, many strange 
 things came to my knowledge. I then learned that Count 
 D'Orsay's death was caused by a pistol-bullet aimed at the 
 Emperor, with whom he was walking arm-in-arm. But it 
 was publicly announced, and universally believed, that he 
 died of a carbuncle in the back. If, even in these days of 
 newspapers, facts can be thus disguised for reasons of State, 
 who will pretend that the circumstances of Belshazzar's 
 death may not have been thus concealed in Chaldea twenty- 
 five centuries ago ? Moreover, Professor Driver's reading 
 of the tablet (see p. 32, ante) renders even this suggestion 
 unnecessary. 
 
 2 P. 503. 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 37 
 
 doubtful whether the tablet mentions Darius 
 or not, but it is certain that any such men- 
 tion would be purely incidental, and wholly 
 outside the purpose with which the inscrip- 
 tion was framed. While its mention of him, 
 therefore, would be conclusive, its silence 
 respecting him would prove nothing. 
 
 Nor will the omission of his name from 
 the commercial tablets decide the matter 
 either way. If, as Daniel indicates, Darius 
 was but a viceroy or vassal king, his 
 suzerain's name would, in the ordinary 
 course, be used for this purpose, just as 
 the name of Nabonidus was used during 
 the regency of Belshazzar. 
 
 But who was this Darius ? Various 
 hypotheses are maintained by scholars of 
 eminence. By some he is identified with 
 Gobryas, and this suggestion commends 
 itself on many grounds.^ Others, again, fol- 
 
 ^ See Appendix II., post. The language of the Cyrus 
 inscription is very striking, as indicating that Gobryas 
 was no mere subordinate ; e.g.., " Peace to the city did 
 Cyrus establish. Peace to all the princes of Babylon did 
 Gobryas his governor proclaim. Governors in Babylon he 
 (Gobryas) appointed." 
 
38 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 low the view adopted by Josephus, accord- 
 ing to which Darius was "the son and 
 successor of Astyages " — namely, Cyaxares 
 II. Xenophon is the only authority for the 
 existence of such a king, but his testimony 
 has been rejected too lightly on the plea 
 that his CyropcBdia is but a romance. The 
 writers of historical romances, however, do 
 not invent king-s. Yet another suofSfestion 
 remains, that Darius was the personal name 
 of " Astyages," the last king of the Medes. 
 "This," says Bishop Westcott, "appears to 
 satisfy all the conditions of the problem."^ 
 
 I refuse to commit myself to any one of 
 these rival hypotheses. My task is merely 
 to show that the question is still open, and 
 that the grounds on which it is now sought 
 to prove it closed are such as would satisfy 
 no one who is competent to form an opinion 
 upon the evidence. Though Professor Driver 
 here remarks that "there seems to be no 
 room for such a ruler," he is careful to add 
 
 ^ Smith's Bible Dictionary, ist ed., article " Darius." 
 Dr. Westcott adds : " The name Astyages was national and 
 not personal, and Ahasuerus represents the name Cyaxares 
 borne by the father of Astyages." 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 39 
 
 that the circumstances are not inconsistent 
 with either his existence or his office, "and a 
 cautious criticism will not build too much on 
 the silence of the inscriptions, where many 
 certainly remain yet to be brought to light." ^ 
 The identity of Darius the Mede is one of 
 the most interesting problems in the Daniel 
 controversy, but it is a problem which still 
 awaits solution. The critics do not dispose 
 of it by declaring the Book of Daniel to be 
 a " pseud-epigraph " of Maccabean days. 
 Accepting that hypothesis for the sake of 
 argument, the mention of Darius remains to 
 be accounted for. Some writers reject it as 
 "pure fiction"; others denounce it as a 
 "sheer blunder." Though these are wholly 
 inconsistent hypotheses. Dr. Farrar, more suo, 
 adopts both. Both, however, are alike un- 
 tenable ; and the " avowed fiction " theory 
 may be dismissed as unworthy of notice. 
 The writer would have had no possible 
 motive for inventing a " Darius," for the 
 
 ^ The Introductio7i, &c., p. 469. In the Addenda note 
 to 3rd ed., Professor Driver seeks to quahfy this, misled 
 by Professor Sayce's argument. But see pp. 33, 34, ante. 
 
40 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 events of Daniel vi. might just as well have 
 been assigned to some other reign, and a 
 figment of the kind would have marred his 
 book. The suggestion is preposterous. 
 
 And ex hypothesi, the author must have 
 been a man of extraordinary genius and of 
 great erudition. He would have had before 
 him historical records now lost, such as the 
 history of Berosus. He would have had 
 access to the authorities upon which the 
 book of the Antiquities is based ; for the 
 student of Josephus cannot fail to see that 
 his history is partly derived from sources 
 other than the Book of Daniel. And be- 
 sides all this, he would have had the Book 
 of Ezra, which records how Darius the 
 Persian issued an edict to give effect to the 
 decree of Cyrus for the rebuilding of the 
 Temple, and also the prophecies of Haggai 
 and Zechariah, which bring this fact into 
 still greater prominence. It may safely be 
 averred, therefore, that no intelligent school- 
 boy, no devout peasant, in all Judah could 
 have been guilty of a blunder so gross and 
 stupid as that which is attributed to this 
 
BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE 4 1 
 
 "holy and gifted Jew," the author of the 
 most famous and successful literary fraud the 
 world has ever seen! The "sheer blunder" 
 theory may be rejected as sheer nonsense. 
 
 Accepting, then, for the sake of argument, 
 the pseud-epigraph theory of Daniel, the 
 book gives proof of a definite and well- 
 established historical tradition that when 
 Cyrus conquered Babylon, " Darius the 
 Mede received the kingdom." How, then, 
 is that tradition to be accounted for ? The 
 question demands an answer, but the critics 
 have none to offer. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 "philological peculiarities": the 
 language of daniel 
 
 "The philological peculiarities of the book" 
 constitute the next oround of the critic's 
 attack on Daniel. "The Hebrew" (he de- 
 clares) "is pronounced by the majority of 
 experts to be of a later character than the 
 time assumed for it." The Aramaic also is 
 marked by idioms of a later period, familiar 
 to the Palestinian Jews.^ And not only are 
 Persian words employed in the book, but it 
 contains certain Greek words, which, it is 
 said, could not have been in use in Babylon 
 during the exile. 
 
 ^ The opening passage of Daniel, from ch. i. i to ch. ii. 3, is 
 written in the sacred Hebrew, and this is resumed at ch. viii. 
 I and continued to the end. The intervening portion, from 
 ch. ii. 4 to the end of ch. vii., is written in Chaldee or Aramaic. 
 Professor Cheyne accepts a suggestion of Lenormant's that 
 the whole book was written in Hebrew, but that the original 
 of ii. 14 to vii. was lost (Smith's Bible Did., art. "Daniel"). 
 
 42 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF DANIEL 43 
 
 Here is Professor Driver's summary of the 
 argument under this head : — 
 
 "The verdict of the language of Daniel is thus 
 clear. The Persian words presuppose a period 
 after the Persian Empire had been well established : 
 the Greek words demand, the Hebrew supportSy and 
 the Aramaic permits^ a date after the conquest of 
 Palestine by Alexander the Great (B.C. 332). With 
 our present knowledge, this is as much as the 
 language authorises us definitely to affirm." ^ 
 
 Now, the strength of this case depends on 
 one point. Any number of argumentative 
 presumptions may be rebutted by opposing 
 evidence ; but here, it is alleged, we have 
 proof which admits of no answer : the Greek 
 words in Daniel demand a date which de- 
 stroys the genuineness of the book. Will 
 the reader believe it that the only foundation 
 for this is the presence of two words which 
 are alleged to be Greek ! Dr. Farrar in- 
 sists on three, but one of these (kitharos) is 
 practically given up.^ 
 
 ^ The Introduciion, p. 476, and The Book of Daniel, 
 p. Ixiii. 
 
 2 In Bertholdt's day the critics counted ten Greek words 
 in Daniel : they have now come down to two. Dr. Pusey 
 denies that there are any. 
 
44 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 The story was lately told that at a church 
 bazaar in Lincoln, held under episcopal 
 patronage, the alarm was given that a thief 
 was at work, and two of the visitors had lost 
 their purses. In the excitement which fol- 
 lowed, the stolen purses, emptied of course 
 of their contents, were found in the bishop's 
 pocket. The Higher Criticism would have 
 handed him over to the police ! Do the 
 critics understand the very rudiments of the 
 science of weighing evidence ? The presence 
 of the stolen purses did not " demand " the 
 conviction of the bishop. Neither should 
 the presence of the Greek words decide the 
 fate of Daniel. There was no doubt, more- 
 over, as to the identity of the purses, while 
 Dr. Pusey and others dispute the derivation 
 of the words. But in the one case as in the 
 other the question would remain. How did 
 they come to be where they were found ? 
 
 The Talmud declares that, in common 
 with some other parts of the canon, Daniel 
 was edited by the men of the Great Syna- 
 gogue — a college which is supposed to have 
 been founded by Nehemiah, and which con- 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF DANIEL 45 
 
 tinued until it gave place to the Great San- 
 hedrim. May not this be the explanation of 
 all these philological difficulties ? This is not 
 to have recourse to a baseless conjecture in 
 order to evade well-founded objections : it is 
 merely to give due weight to an authori- 
 tative tradition, the very existence of which 
 \s prima facie proof of its truth. ^ 
 
 It may be added that in view of recent 
 discoveries no competent scholar would 
 
 ^ The attempt to explain in this way difficulties of another 
 kind is to force the hypothesis unduly. But assuming, what 
 there is no reason whatever to doubt, that such a revision 
 took place, we should expect to find that familiar idioms 
 would be substituted for others that were deemed archaic, 
 that familiar words would be substituted for terms which 
 then seemed strange or uncouth to the Jews of Palestine, 
 and that names like Nebuchadrezzar would be altered to 
 suit the then received orthography. And the " immense ana- 
 chronism," if such it were, of using the word " Chaldeans " 
 as synonymous with the caste of wise men is thus simply 
 and fully explained. 
 
 As regards the name Nebuchadnezzar, it is hard to re- 
 press a feeling of indignation against the dishonesty of the 
 critics. They plainly imply that this spelling is peculiar to 
 Daniel. The fact is that the name occurs in nine of the 
 books of the Old Testament, and in all of them, with the 
 single exception of Ezekiel, it appears in this form. In 
 Jeremiah it is spelt in both ways, proving clearly that the 
 now received orthography was in use when the Book of 
 Daniel was written, or else that the spelling of the name 
 throughout the sacred books is entirely a matter of editing. 
 
46 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 now reproduce without reserve the argu- 
 ment based on the presence of foreign 
 words in the book. The fact is, the evolu- 
 tion theory has thrown its shadow across 
 this controversy. The extraordinary conceit 
 which marks our much-vaunted age has 
 hitherto led us to assume that, in what has 
 been regarded as a prehistoric period, men 
 were slowly emerging from barbarism, that 
 written records were wanting, and that there 
 was no interchanore amonpf nations in the 
 sphere either of scholarship or of trade. It 
 is now known, however, that at even a far 
 earlier period the nations bordering upon the 
 Mediterranean possessed a literature and en- 
 joyed a civilisation of no mean excellence. 
 Merchants and philosophers travelled freely 
 from land to land,^ carrying with them their 
 
 ^ May not all that is truest and best in Buddhism be thus 
 traced to the great prophet-prince of the exile ? Gautama 
 was a contemporary of Daniel. And when he set out upon 
 his long pilgrimage in search of truth and light, may he not 
 have found his way to Babylon, then the most famous centre 
 both of civilisation and of religion. And visiting the broad- 
 walled city, he could not fail to come under the influence of 
 Daniel. Daniel was born about B.C. 624 ; and, according 
 to Sir E. Arnold {Light of Asia, Preface), Gautama was born 
 about B.C. 620. 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF DANIEL 47 
 
 wares and their learning ; and to appeal to 
 the Greek words in Daniel as proof that the 
 book was written after the date of Alex- 
 ander's conquests, no longer savours of 
 scholarship. According to Professor Sayce, 
 "there were Greek colonies on the coast of 
 Palestine in the time of Hezekiah " — a cen- 
 tury before Daniel was born; "and they 
 already enjoyed so much power there that a 
 Greek usurper was made King of Ashdod. 
 The Tel el-Amarna tablets have enabled 
 us to carry back a contract between Greece 
 and Canaan to a still earlier period."^ In- 
 deed he goes on to indicate the possibility 
 " that there was intercourse and contact be- 
 tween the Canaanites or Hebrews in Pales- 
 tine and the Greeks of the ^gean as far 
 back as the age of Moses." 
 
 But this is not all. Will the reader 
 believe it, I ask again with increasing 
 emphasis and indignation, that the Greek 
 words, the presence of which is held to 
 "demand" the rejection of the Book of 
 Daniel, are merely the names of musical 
 
 ^ The Higlier Criticism and the Monuments, pp. 494, 495. 
 
48 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 instruments ? If the instruments themselves 
 came from Greece it might be assumed that 
 they would carry with them to Babylon the 
 names by which they were known in the 
 land of their origin. In no other sphere 
 would men listen to what passes for proof 
 when Scripture is assailed. In no other 
 sphere would such trifling be tolerated. 
 What would be thought of a tribunal which 
 convicted a notorious thief of petty larceny 
 on such evidence as this ? 
 
 The Persian words are of still less account. 
 That the Persian language was unknown 
 among the cultured classes in Babylon is 
 incredible. That it was widely known is 
 suggested by the ease with which the Per- 
 sian rule was accepted. The position which 
 Daniel attained under that rule renders it 
 probable in the extreme that he himself 
 was a Persian scholar. And the date of 
 his closino- vision makes it certain that his 
 book was compiled after that rule was 
 established. 
 
 But, it will be answered, the philological 
 argument does not rest upon points like 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF DANIEL 49 
 
 these ; its strength lies in the general char- 
 acter of the language in which the book 
 is written. The question here raised, as 
 Dr. Farrar justly says, "involves delicate 
 problems on which an independent and 
 a valuable opinion can only be offered" by 
 scholars of a certain class and very few in 
 number.^ 
 
 But the student will find that their deci- 
 sion is by no means unanimous or clear. 
 And of course their dicta must be considered 
 in connection with evidence of other kinds 
 which it is beyond their province to deal 
 with. Dr. Pusey's magnificent work, in which 
 the whole subject is handled with the great- 
 est erudition and care, is not dismissed by 
 others with the contempt which Dr. Farrar 
 evinces for a man who is fired by the enthu- 
 siasm of faith in the Bible. In his judgment 
 the Hebrew of Daniel is "just what one 
 should expect at the age at which he lived." ^ 
 
 ^ Dr. Farrar's words are, "by the merest handful of living 
 scholars" (p. 17). How many scholars make a "handful" 
 he does not tell us, and of the two he proceeds to appeal to, 
 one is not living but dead ! 
 
 * Pusey, p. 578. 
 
 D 
 
50 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 And one of the highest living authorities, who 
 has been quoted in this controversy as favour- 
 ing a late date for the Book of Daniel, writes 
 in reply to an inquiry I have addressed to 
 him : " I am now of opinion that it is a very 
 difficult task to settle the age of any portion 
 of that book from its language." This is 
 also the opinion of Professor Cheyne, a 
 thoroughly hostile witness. His words are : 
 " From the Hebrew of the Book of Daniel 
 no important inference as to its date can be 
 safely drawn." ^ 
 
 And, lastly, appeal may be made to Dr. 
 Farrar himself, who remarks with signal 
 fairness, but with strange inconsistency, that 
 " Perhaps nothing certain can be inferred 
 from the philological examination either of 
 the Hebrew or of the Chaldee portions of 
 the book." ^ And again, still more definitely, 
 he declares : " The character of the language 
 proves nothing." ^ This testimony, carrying 
 as it does the exceptional weight which 
 attaches to the admissions of a prejudiced 
 
 ^ Ency. Brit., art. " Daniel," p. 804. 
 2 P. 17. 3 p, 39. 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF DANIEL 5 1 
 
 and hostile witness, might be accepted as 
 decisive of the whole question. And the 
 fact being what is here stated, the stress 
 laid on grounds thus admitted to be faulty 
 and inconclusive is proof only of a deter- 
 mination by fair means or foul to discredit 
 the Book of Daniel. 
 
 In his History of the Criminal Law, Sir 
 James Fitzjames Stephen declares that, as 
 no kind of evidence more demands the 
 test of cross-examination than that of ex- 
 perts, their proper place is the witness 
 chair and not the judgment seat. There- 
 fore when Professor Driver announces "the 
 verdict of the language of Daniel," he 
 goes entirely outside his proper province. 
 The opinions of the philologist are entitled 
 to the highest respect, but the " verdict " 
 rests with those who have practical ac- 
 quaintance with the science of evidence. 
 
 Before turning away from this part of 
 the subject, it may be well to appeal to 
 yet another witness, and he shall be one 
 whose competency Dr. Farrar acknowledges, 
 and none will question. His words, more- 
 
52 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 over, have an interest and value far beyond 
 the present controversy, and deserve most 
 careful consideration by all who have been 
 stumbled or misled by the arrogant dog- 
 matism of the so-called Higher Critics. The 
 following quotation is from An Essay on the 
 Place of Ecclesiasticus in Semitic Literature 
 by Professor Margoliouth : ^ — 
 
 " My lamented colleague, Dr. Edersheim, and I, 
 misled by the very late date assigned by eminent 
 scholars to the books of the Bible, had worked 
 under the tacit assumption that the language of 
 Ben - Sira was the language of the Prophets ; 
 whereas in reality he wrote the language of the 
 Rabbis " (p. 6). 
 
 It should be explained that the Proverbs 
 of Jesus the son of Sirach have come down 
 to us in a Greek translation, but the 
 character of that translation is such that the 
 reconstruction of the original Hebrew text 
 is a task within the capacity of competent 
 scholarship, and a preface to that translation 
 fixes the date of the book as not later than 
 about B.C. 200. But to resume : — 
 
 ' Clarendon Press, 1890. 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF DANIEL 53 
 
 " If by 200 B.C. the whole Rabbinic farrago, 
 with its terms and phrases and idioms and par- 
 ticles, was developed, . . . then between Ben-Sira 
 and the Books of the Old Testament there must lie 
 centuries — nay, there must lie, in most cases, the 
 deep waters of the Captivity, the grave of the old- 
 Hebrew and the old Israel, and the womb of the 
 new-Hebrew and the new Israel. If Hebrew, like 
 any other language, has a history, then Isaiah (first 
 or second) must be separated from Ecclesiastes by 
 a gulf; but a yet greater gulf must yawn between 
 Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiaticus, for in the interval 
 a whole dictionary has been invented of philoso- 
 phical terms such as we traced above, of logical 
 phrases, . . . legal expressions, . . . nor have the 
 structure and grammar of the language experi- 
 enced less serious alteration. ... It may be, if 
 ever Ben-Sira is properly restored, . . . that while 
 some students are engaged in bringing down the 
 date of every chapter in the Bible so late as to 
 leave no room for prophecy and revelation, others 
 will endeavour to find out how early the professedly 
 post-exilian books can be put back, so as to ac- 
 count for the divergence between their awkward 
 middle-Hebrew and the rich and eloquent new- 
 Hebrew of Ben-Sira. However this may be, hypo- 
 theses which place any portion of the classical or 
 old-Hebrew Scriptures between the middle-Hebrew 
 of Nehemiah and the new-Hebrew of Ben-Sira will 
 surely require some reconsideration, or at least 
 
54 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 have to be harmonised in some way with the history 
 of the language, before they can be unconditionally 
 accepted." 
 
 These weighty words have received strik- 
 ing confirmation by the recent discovery of 
 the " Cairene Ecclesiasticus," a Hebrew MS. 
 the genuineness of which is maintained by 
 most of the critics, though others regard it as 
 merely an attempt to reconstruct the original 
 of Ben-Sira. According to Dr. Schechter, 
 who has edited the document for the 
 University of Cambridge, an examination 
 of the language establishes "the conclusion 
 that at the period in which B,-S. composed 
 his 'Wisdom' classical Hebrew was already 
 a thing of the past, the real language of the 
 period being that Hebrew idiom which we 
 know from the Mishnah and cognate Rab- 
 binic literature." And again, after freely 
 quoting from Ben-Sira: "These specimens 
 are enough to show that in the times of B.-S. 
 the new-Hebrew dialect had long advanced 
 beyond the transitory stage known to us 
 from the later Biblical books, and had already 
 reached, both in respect of grammar and of 
 
THE LANGUAGE OF DANIEL SS 
 
 phraseology, that degree of development to 
 which the Mishnah bears testimony. 
 
 " 1 
 
 1 T/ie Wisdom of Ben-Sira, S^c, by S. Schechter, M.A., 
 Litt.D., &c., and C. Taylor, D.D., Master of St. John's Col- 
 lege, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press, 1899). As 
 Professor Driver and his school have unreservedly accepted 
 this MS., it is not open to them to plead that its genuineness 
 is doubtful. And if Professor Margoliouth's judgment 
 should ultimately prevail that it is a forgery of late date — 
 the tenth or eleventh century — it would be still, as an 
 attempt to reconstruct the Hebrew original, a notable con- 
 firmation of the views and opinions above cited. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE POSITIVE EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR 
 OF DANIEL 
 
 The critics claim a competency to judge 
 whether this portion or that of the canon 
 of Scripture be divinely inspired, and in the 
 exercise of this faculty they have decided 
 that certain passages of Daniel give proof 
 that the book could not have a divine 
 sanction. Their dicta on this subject will 
 have weight with us just in proportion to our 
 ignorance of Scripture. The opening chap- 
 ters of the book which follows Daniel in the 
 canon present far greater difficulties in this 
 respect, and yet the prophetic character of 
 Hosea is unquestionable. Other Scriptures 
 also might be cited to point the same moral ; 
 but as these pretensions of the critics are 
 not accepted by Christians generally, the 
 matter need not be further discussed. 
 
 Still more summarily we may dismiss 
 
 56 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL S7 
 
 Dean Farrar's argument from the absence 
 of references to Daniel in the apocryphal 
 literature of the Jews. Indeed, he himself 
 supplies the answer to it, for when he ap- 
 proaches the subject from another standpoint 
 he emphasises the influence which the book 
 exercised upon that very literature/ And 
 as for the silence of Jesus the son of Sirach, 
 the argument only serves to indicate the 
 dearth of weightier proofs. The reader can 
 turn to the passage referred to'^ and decide 
 the matter for himself. If an omission from 
 this panegyric of " famous men " proves any- 
 thing, Ezra and the book which bears his 
 name must also be rejected. 
 
 The next point claims fuller notice. Daniel 
 was admittedly received into the canon ; but, 
 we are told, "it is relegated to the Kethuvim, 
 
 ^ "The book is in all respects unique, a writing sui 
 generis; for the many imitations to which it led are but 
 imitations" (p. 37). This is but one of numerous instances 
 in which Dr. Farrar affords on one page a refutation of 
 objections stated upon another. 
 
 2 Ecclesiasticus, xlviii. 20-xlix. 10. On this point see 
 Professor Margoliouth's Lines of Defence of the Biblical 
 Revelation, pp. 177, 178, 305. It is there established that 
 the Book of Daniel was known to Ben-Sira, and the whole 
 pseud-epigraph theory is thus exploded. 
 
58 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 side by side with such a book as Esther." 
 The answer to this is complete. In the 
 Jewish canon the Old Testament Scriptures 
 were reckoned as twenty-four books. These 
 were classified as the Torah, the Neveeim^ 
 and the Kethuvim — the Law, the Prophets, 
 and the Other Writings. Now, the objection 
 implies that the Neveeim embraced all that 
 was regarded as prophecy, and nothing else ; 
 and that the contents of the Kethuvhn were 
 deemed inferior to the rest of the canon. 
 Both these implications are false. In the 
 former class are placed the books of Joshua, 
 Judges, Samuel, and Kings. And the latter 
 included two books at least, than which no 
 part of the Scriptures was more highly 
 esteemed, — the Psalms, associated so in- 
 separably with the name of King David ; 
 and Esther, which, pace the sneer of the 
 critic, was held in exceptional honour. Dr. 
 Driver avers that it came to be "ranked by 
 the Jews as superior both to the writings of 
 the prophets and to all other parts of the 
 Hagiographa."^ The Psalms headed the 
 
 ^ Introduction, p. 452. 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 59 
 
 list. Then came Proverbs, connected with 
 the name of Solomon. Then Job, one of 
 the oldest of the books. Then followed 
 the five Megilloth (Song of Songs, Ruth, 
 Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther). 
 And finally Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah, 
 and Chronicles. To have placed Daniel 
 before the Megilloth would have separated 
 it from the books with which it was so im- 
 mediately associated. In a word, its place 
 in the list is normal and natural.^ 
 
 The Book of Psalms, as already men- 
 tioned, stood first in the Kethuvim, and in 
 later times gave it its name ; for when our 
 Lord spoke of "the Law of Moses, the 
 Prophets, and the Psalms," he thereby 
 meant **all the Scriptures."^ Many of the 
 Psalms were rightly deemed prophetic ; but 
 though David was a prophet in the highest 
 sense, it was not as prophet but as king that 
 his name was enshrined in the memory of 
 the people, and the book thus naturally 
 found its place in the third division of the 
 
 ^ But see p. 60, post. 
 ^ Luke xxiv. 27, 44. 
 
6o DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 canon. For the books were grouped rather 
 by authorship than by the character of their 
 contents. Precisely the same reason existed 
 for placing Daniel where it stood ; for it 
 was not till the end of a long life spent in 
 statecraft that the visions were accorded to 
 the Exile. 
 
 But this is not all. As Dr. Farrar urges, 
 though he is obviously blind to its signi- 
 ficance, Daniel had no claim to the prophet's 
 mantle. The prophets "spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost:" he merely 
 recorded the words addressed to him by 
 the angel, and described the visions he 
 witnessed. And the question here, be it 
 remembered, is not what weight would be 
 given to this distinction by our modern 
 critics, but how it would influence the minds 
 of the men who settled the canon. I am 
 here assuming that the place which the 
 Book of Daniel now holds in the Hebrew 
 Bible is that which was originally assigned 
 to it. But this is by no means certain. 
 There are definite reasons to suspect that 
 it was the Talmudists who removed it from 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 6 1 
 
 the position it occupies in the LXX. version 
 and in our English Bible, and relegated it to 
 the third division of the canon/ 
 
 And now it is high time to raise a ques- 
 tion which the critic systematically ignores, 
 a question which possibly he is incompetent 
 to deal with. For the Higher Criticism 
 claims an entirely false position in this con- 
 troversy. The critic is a specialist ; and 
 specialists, though often necessary witnesses, 
 are proverbially bad judges. To some men, 
 moreover, every year that passes brings 
 more experience in the art of weighing evi- 
 dence than the theologian or the pundit 
 would be likely to acquire in a lifetime. 
 And such men are familiar with cases where 
 a mass of seemingly invincible proof seems 
 to point one way, and yet fuller inquiry 
 establishes that the truth lies in a wholly 
 opposite direction. But the caution which 
 such experience begets is not to be looked 
 for in the critic. And as for Dr. Farrar, his 
 book reminds us of a private prosecution 
 
 ^ On this subject see Kitto's Encyclopedia^ article 
 " Canon," by the learned editor of that work. 
 
62 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 conducted by that type of lawyer whose 
 remuneration is proportionate to the vehe- 
 mence with which he presses every point 
 against the defendant. It never seems to 
 have crossed his mind that there may pos- 
 sibly be two sides to the question. Here, 
 then, we have everything which can possibly 
 be urged against the Book of Daniel : the 
 inquiry remains, What further can be said 
 in its defence? Let us call a few of the 
 witnesses. 
 
 First comes the mention of Daniel, three 
 times repeated, in the prophecies of Ezekiel 
 (xiv. 14, 20, and xxviii. 3). The critics 
 urge that a man so famous as the Daniel 
 of the Exile is represented to have been in 
 the book which bears his name, would have 
 filled a large place in the literature of the 
 nation, and they appeal to the silence of that 
 literature in proof that no such personage 
 in fact existed. And yet when the testimony 
 of Ezekiel is cited, they declare that there 
 must have been another Daniel of equal if 
 not greater fame, who flourished at some 
 earlier epoch of their history, albeit not even 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 63 
 
 the vaguest tradition of his existence has 
 survived ! Such casuistry is hard to deal 
 with. 
 
 But here Dr. Farrar is rash enough to 
 leave the path so well worn by the feet of 
 those he follows, and to venture upon a piece 
 of independent criticism. He fixes B.C. 606 
 as the date of Daniel's captivity, and twelve 
 years as his age when carried to Babylon ; 
 and he adds : — 
 
 "If Ezekiel's prophecy was uttered B.C. 584, 
 Daniel at that time could only have been twenty- 
 two: if it was uttered as late as B.C. 572, Daniel 
 would still have been only thirty-four, and there- 
 fore little more than a youth in Jewish eyes. It is 
 undoubtedly surprising that among Orientals, who 
 regard age as the chief passport to wisdom, a 
 living youth should be thus canonised between 
 the Patriarch of the Deluge and the Prince of 
 Uz."i 
 
 The author's words have been given ver- 
 batim^ lest some one 'should charitably sup- 
 pose they have been misrepresented. For 
 the reader will perceive that this pretentious 
 argument has no better foundation than a 
 
 1 P. 10. 
 
64 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 transparent blunder in simple arithmetic.^ 
 According to his own showing, Daniel was 
 upwards of thirty-four,^ and he may have 
 been forty-six, when Ezekiel's prophecy was 
 uttered. And setting aside the absurd fig- 
 ment that Daniel was but a child of twelve 
 when deported to Babylon,^ his age at the 
 date of the prophecy must, as a matter of 
 fact, have been forty at the least, or " if it 
 was uttered as late as B.C. 572," he must 
 have already reached middle age. In either 
 case he had already attained the prime of 
 his powers and the zenith of his fame. 
 
 What, then, are the facts ? We have 
 Daniel in a position of dazzling splendour 
 and influence at the Court of Nebuchad- 
 nezzar, second only to that of the great 
 king himself. His power and fame, great 
 
 ^ Any schoolboy can see that from B.C. 606 to B.C. 584 was 
 twenty-two years, and if Daniel was twelve in B.C. 606, his 
 age in B.C. 584 was not twenty-two, but thirty-four. Or if 
 B.C. 572 was the date of the prophecy, his age when it was 
 uttered was forty-six. 
 
 2 At 34 years of age Napoleon became Emperor, and the 
 foremost figure in Europe. At ^2, Alexander died, having 
 already conquered the world. 
 
 ^ Pp. 18, 19, an/e. If his age at the time was eighteen, 
 he died at eighty-eight. 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 65 
 
 though they were, cannot fail to have 
 loomed ereater still in the estimate of the 
 humbler exiles by the river Chebar, among 
 whom Ezekiel lived and prophesied. 
 Neither " the Patriarch of the Deluge " 
 nor "the Prince of Uz" would have held 
 as large a place in the heart or in the 
 imagination of the people. The name of 
 their great patron must have been on every 
 lip. His power was their security against 
 oppression. His influence doubtless fired 
 their hopes of a return to the land of their 
 fathers. 
 
 Nor was this all. The college of the 
 Chaldean Magi was famous the wide world 
 over ; and for more than twenty years 
 Daniel had been "chief of the wise men," 
 and thus, in wisdom as well as in statecraft, 
 the foremost figure of the Court of Babylon. 
 Among Orientals, and especially among his 
 own people, the record of the event which 
 gained him that position, and of his triumphs 
 of administration as Grand Vizier, would 
 have lost nothing in the telling. And 
 though his piety was intense and wholly 
 
 E 
 
66 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 phenomenal, his reputation in this respect 
 also could not fail to be exaggerated. 
 
 Such, then; was the time and such the 
 circumstances of Ezekiel's prophecy — words 
 of scorn addressed to one of the great ene- 
 mies of their race : " Behold thou art wiser 
 than Daniel, there is no secret that they can 
 hide from thee ; " or words of denunciation 
 of the wickedness which brought such judg- 
 ments upon Jerusalem : " Though these three 
 men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, 
 they should deliver but their own souls by 
 their righteousness." 
 
 The refusal therefore to accept the testi- 
 mony of Ezekiel as evidence to accredit the 
 Book of Daniel is proof that neither honesty 
 nor fairness may be looked for from the 
 sceptics. In the judgment of all reasonable 
 men, this single testimony will go far to 
 decide the issue.^ 
 
 The First Book of Maccabees is a work 
 of the highest excellence. It has an author- 
 ity and value which no other part of the 
 Apocrypha possesses, and even Luther de- 
 ' On this see also p. 98, pos/. 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 6/ 
 
 clared it not unworthy to be reckoned among 
 the sacred books of Scripture. The author 
 was indeed "a holy and gifted Jew," and 
 though the suggestion that he was no other 
 than John Hyrcanus is now discredited, it 
 gives proof of his eminence both for piety 
 and learning. And one of the most striking 
 and solemn passages of this book, the record 
 of the dying words of the venerable Mat- 
 tathias, refers to the Daniel of the Exile 
 and the book which bears his name.^ 
 
 Notwithstanding the extraordinary eru- 
 dition which has been brought to bear 
 upon this controversy, so far as I am 
 aware the full significance of this fact has 
 hitherto escaped notice. There is internal 
 evidence that i Maccabees was written be- 
 fore the death of John Hyrcanus (e.g. io6). 
 Allowing, then, for the sake of argument, 
 the utterly improbable hypothesis that the 
 
 ^ I Mace. ii. 59, 60. The whole passage is important, but 
 the special reference is to the words : "Ananias, Azarias, and 
 Misael by believing were saved out of the flame. Daniel for 
 his innocency was delivered from the mouth of the lions." 
 Nor is this all. Thewords ^SiXvynaeprjiiaatcos in I Macc. i. 
 54 are quoted from Dan. xii. 11. 
 
68 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 canon was not closed till after the time of 
 Antiochus, the book affords conclusive proof 
 that among the learned of that day Daniel 
 was regarded as the work of the great 
 prophet-prince of the Captivity. It was as 
 such, therefore, that it must have been ad- 
 mitted to the canon. The theory is thus 
 exploded that it was as a "pseud-epigraph" 
 that the Sanhedrim received it ; and the 
 fact of its reception becomes evidence of 
 its orenuineness which would outweigh the 
 whole mass of the objections and difficulties 
 which have been heaped together upon the 
 other side. 
 
 If space were of no account, numerous 
 points might thus be turned against the 
 argument in support of which the critic 
 adduces them. But these may be safely 
 ignored in presence of other proofs of 
 principal importance. 
 
 It was Sir Isaac Newton's opinion that 
 "to reject Daniel's prophecies would be to 
 undermine the Christian religion." Bishop 
 Westcott declares that no other book of 
 the Old Testament had so great a share 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 69 
 
 in the development of Christianity.^ To 
 cite a hostile witness, Professor Bevan ad- 
 mits that "the influence of the book is 
 apparent almost everywhere." In this con- 
 nection he adds : " The more we realise 
 how vast and how profound was the in- 
 fluence of Daniel in post-Maccabean times, 
 the more difficult it is to believe that the 
 book existed previously for well-nigh four 
 centuries without exercising any perceptible 
 influence whatsoever." ^ On this it maybe 
 remarked, first, that it is far more difficult 
 to believe that a "pseud-epigraph" could 
 possibly have had an influence so vast and 
 so profound on the development of Chris- 
 tianity. The suggestion indeed, if accepted, 
 might well discredit Christianity altogether. 
 And secondly, it is extraordinary how any 
 person can fail to see that the influence of 
 the Book of Daniel in post-Maccabean times 
 was due to the fulfilment of its predictions 
 relating to those times. 
 
 Dr. Farrar quotes, though with special 
 
 1 Smith's Bible Diet., art. " Daniel." 
 
 2 Short Com,, p. 1 5. 
 
70 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 reprobation, the dictum of Hengstenberg, 
 that " there are few books whose divine 
 authority is so fully established by the 
 testimony of the New Testament, and in 
 particular by the Lord Himself." And yet 
 the truth of all this no thoughtful Chris- 
 tian can question. St. Paul's predictions of 
 the Antichrist point back to the visions of 
 Daniel. And with those visions the visions 
 of St. John — the Daniel of the New Testa- 
 ment — are so inseparably interwoven, that 
 if the former be attributed to imagination, 
 the latter must be attributed to lunacy. 
 The Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse 
 stand or fall together. 
 
 But the matter becomes far more serious 
 and solemn when we realise how definitely 
 the visions of Daniel have been adopted 
 in the teaching of Christ. Dr. Farrar ima- 
 gines that he has disposed of the matter 
 by the figment that in the twenty-fourth 
 chapter of Matthew the reference to 
 "Daniel the prophet" was added by the 
 evangelist as an explanatory note. But 
 even if such a wild suggestion could be 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 7 1 
 
 allowed, every intelligent reader of the 
 passage can see that any such interpolation 
 must have been based upon the obvious 
 and unmistakable connection between the 
 words of our Lord and the visions of the 
 prophet of the Exile. 
 
 Here is a dilemma from which escape is 
 impossible. If the Gospels be authentic and 
 true, our Lord has adopted, and identified 
 Himself with, the visions of this now dis- 
 credited book. If the Gospels be unreliable 
 and fictitious, the foundations of our faith are 
 destroyed, and belief in Christianity is sheer 
 superstition. " To the last degree danger- 
 ous, irreverent, and unwise" this may seem 
 in the Dean of Canterbury's judgment, but 
 its truth is none the less obvious and 
 clear. 
 
 It cannot be asserted too plainly that 
 Christianity is a Divine revelation. Nor 
 need the admission be withheld that, apart 
 from revelation in the strictest sense, the 
 Christian's faith would be without adequate 
 foundation. It is easy, indeed, to formulate 
 a religious system based on the teaching of a 
 
72 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 traditional "Jesus Christ." But this is no 
 more than a Christianised Buddhism ; it is 
 certainly not Christianity. The main fact on 
 which Christianity as a system rests is the 
 incarnation ; and the man who, apart from 
 revelation, believes in the incarnation is a 
 credulous weak creature who would believe 
 anything. 
 
 " The Nazarene was admittedly the son 
 of Mary. The Jews declared that he was 
 the son of Joseph ; the Christian worships 
 Him as the Son of God. The founder of 
 Rome was said to be the divinely begotten 
 child of a vestal virgin. And in the old 
 Babylonian mysteries a similar parentage 
 was ascribed to the martyred son of Semi- 
 ramis gazetted Queen of Heaven. What 
 grounds have we, then, for distinguishing 
 the miraculous birth at Bethlehem from 
 these and other kindred legends of the 
 ancient world ? To point to the resurrec- 
 tion is a transparent begging of the question. 
 To appeal to human testimony is utter folly. 
 At this point we are face to face with that 
 to which no consensus of mere human testi- 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 7S 
 
 mony could lend even an a priori proba- 
 bility."^ 
 
 The editor of Liix Mundi and his allies 
 would here seek to save their reputation for 
 intelligence by setting up the authority of 
 "the Church" as an adequate ground for 
 faith. This theory, however, is a plant of 
 foreign growth, which, happily, has not taken 
 root in England. But while on this point 
 the Dean of Canterbury would probably re- 
 pudiate the teaching with which, in its de- 
 generate days, Pusey House identified itself, 
 he would doubtless endorse the words which 
 follow. Here is the passage : — 
 
 " The Christian creed asserts the reality of certain 
 historical facts. To these facts, in the Church's 
 name, we claim assent; but we do so on grounds 
 which, so far, are quite independent of the inspira- 
 tion of the evangelical records. All that we claim 
 to show at this stage is that they are historical : not 
 historical so as to be absolutely without error, but 
 historical in the general sense, so as to be trust- 
 worthy. All that is necessary for faith in Christ is 
 to be found in the moral dispositions which predis- 
 pose to belief, and make intelligible and credible the 
 
 1 A Doubter's Doubts about Science and Religion, p. 76. 
 
74 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 thing to be believed : coupled with such acceptance 
 of the generally historical character of the Gospels, 
 and of the trustworthiness of the other Apostolic 
 documents, as justifies belief that our Lord was 
 actually born of the Virgin Mary," &c.^ 
 
 This language is plain enough. The 
 gospels are not even divinely accredited as 
 true. They are " historical in the general 
 sense " indeed, and therefore as trustworthy 
 as history in general. They afford, there- 
 fore, ample ground for belief in the public 
 facts of the life and death of Christ. But 
 who denies or doubts these facts ? They 
 have their place in the Koran and the 
 writings of the Rabbis, as well as in our 
 Christian literature. But on what ground 
 can we justify our faith in the transcendental 
 facts to which these public facts owe all their 
 spiritual significance.'* "To these facts, in 
 the Church's name, we claim assent," is the 
 only reply vouchsafed to us. Let a man 
 but yield up his judgment and bow before 
 his priest, and he will soon acquire "the 
 moral dispositions which predispose to belief, 
 
 ^ Lux Mundi, p. 340. 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL 75 
 
 and make intelligible and credible the thing 
 to be believed." And whether the object of 
 his worship be Buddha or Mahomet or Christ, 
 the result will be the same ! ^ 
 
 " But," Dr. Farrar here exclaims, 
 
 " Our belief in the Incarnation, and in the miracles 
 of Christ, rests on evidence which, after repeated 
 examination, is to us overwhelming. Apart from 
 all questions of personal verification, or the Inward 
 Witness of the Spirit, we can show that this evidence 
 is supported, not only by the existing records, but by 
 myriads of external and independent testimonies." ^ 
 
 Contempt is poured upon our belief that 
 an angel messenger appeared to Daniel, and 
 we are not even permitted to believe that 
 an angel ministered to our Divine Lord in 
 the Garden of Gethsemane.^ But if, as the 
 
 ' I have dealt with this more fully in The Buddha of 
 Christtmdom, ch. vii. 
 
 2 P. 40. 
 
 » This, according to Dr. Farrar, has no foundation save 
 in the superstitious imagination of the three disciples when 
 half dazed with sleep \—The Life of Christ, ch. Ivii. What 
 authority have we, then, for the words alleged to have been 
 uttered by the Lord in His agony? What confidence can 
 we feel in the narrative at all ? The Gospels become (to use 
 the critic's words about the Book of Daniel) a charming and 
 elevating romance ! For the full development of this pro- 
 
76 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 natural outcome of this teaching, we should 
 be led to doubt the reality of the angelic 
 apparition at Bethlehem, the indignation of 
 the teacher will find vent in a scream of 
 hysterical and unmeaning rhetoric. 
 
 For the question at issue here is the truth 
 of the opening statement of the Gospel nar- 
 rative. I allude to Matthew i. 18-25, the 
 last verse especially. To the facts there 
 recorded only two persons in the world 
 could testify, and the witness of Mary and 
 Joseph reaches us only in the very records 
 which, we are told, are unreliable and marred 
 by error. But Dean Farrar will assure us 
 that, while words attributed to our Lord 
 Himself are not to be accepted as authentic 
 and true, the evidence here is " overwhelm- 
 ing." Of the reality of Joseph's visions, 
 and of the fact of Mary's faithfulness and 
 purity, we are supposed to have satisfied 
 ourselves, first by ''personal verification," 
 
 fane system, see Professor Cheyne's Encyc. Bib., article 
 " Gospels." A man who accepts that article and yet pro- 
 fesses to believe in Christianity is either utterly dishonest 
 or hopelessly credulous and superstitious. 
 
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL "]"] 
 
 secondly by " the inward witness of the 
 Spirit," thirdly by study of the "existing 
 records " — the very records which he dis- 
 parages — and lastly by " tens of thousands 
 of external testimonies " ! To discuss this 
 is impossible, for here the writer passes out 
 of the region in which reason holds sway, 
 and parts company even with common-sense. 
 The position of the Christian is an in- 
 telligible one. Though he believes in the 
 unseen and the unprovable, his faith is 
 strictly rational ; for, assuming a Divine 
 revelation, belief is the highest act of reason. 
 I cannot here discuss the grounds on which 
 he claims to possess such a revelation.^ I 
 merely note the fact that the Christian main- 
 tains such a claim, and that, if it be assented 
 to, his position is unassailable. But if once 
 the validity of that claim be destroyed, every 
 fearless thinker must fall back upon scep- 
 ticism as "the rational attitude of a thinking 
 mind towards the supernatural." " The story 
 
 ^ This, of course, would raise the whole question of In- 
 spiration, the discussion of which would be impossible here. 
 But see p. ii, ante. 
 
 ^ Mill's Essays on Religion^ p. 242. 
 
78 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 of the Incarnation sinks at once to the level 
 of a Galilean legend, and our faith in Chris- 
 tianity is the merest superstition. 
 
 Not that the removal of spurious portions 
 of the canon need necessarily lessen faith in 
 what remains. But, as already urged, if the 
 Book of Daniel be expunged the Revelation 
 of John must share its fate, and in view 
 of their exclusion numerous passages in the 
 Gospels and Epistles must be fearlessly re- 
 edited. Some may imagine that the process, 
 if intrusted to reverent hands, would not 
 undermine the fabric of the Bible as a whole ; 
 but all will admit that it could not fail to 
 weaken it. Nor is this plea put forward as 
 an excuse for clinging to what is doubtful. 
 It is designed only as a protest and a warn- 
 ing against the recklessness and levity of 
 the critics. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 "violent errors" 
 
 " The existence of violent errors as to mat- 
 ters with which a contemporary must have 
 been famiHar, at once refutes all pretence of 
 historic authenticity in a book professing to 
 have been written by an author in the days 
 and country which he describes." " By no 
 possibility could the book have been written 
 in the days of the Babylonian exile." Thus 
 it is that Dean Farrar disposes of the Book 
 of Daniel. Such dogmatism, while it will 
 surprise and distress the thoughtful and well- 
 informed, will no'doubt overwhelm the simple 
 folk whom this volume of the Expositor s 
 Bible is presumably intended to enlighten. 
 Indeed, the writer betrays throughout 
 his belief that, from Bacon to Pusey, all 
 who have accepted the Book of Daniel as 
 authentic have been wanting either in hon- 
 
 79 
 
8o DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 esty or intelligence. And it suggests that 
 he himself is one of a line of scholars who, as 
 the result of independent inquiry, are agreed 
 in rejecting it. The discovery of the hidden 
 records of the court of Babylon cannot be 
 much longer deferred, and when these shall 
 have been brought to light we shall learn, 
 perchance, on which side the folly lies — that 
 of the believers or of the critics. And while 
 an ignorant public is easily imposed upon by 
 a parade of seeming scholarship, no one who 
 is versed in the Daniel controversy can fail 
 to recognise that fair and independent inquiry 
 is absolutely wanting. 
 
 Porphyry the Pagan it was who set the 
 ball rolling long ago. After resting for 
 centuries it was again put- in motion by 
 the rationalists. And now that the fashion 
 has set towards scepticism, and " Higher 
 Criticism " is supposed to denote higher 
 culture, critic follows critic, like sheep 
 through a gap. Here in this last contribution 
 to the controversy the writer falls into line, 
 wholly unconscious that the " violent errors " 
 he pillories have an existence only in the 
 
" VIOLENT ERRORS " 8 I 
 
 ignorance of those who denounce them. 
 And we seek in vain for a single page that 
 gives proof of fair and unbiassed inquiry. 
 
 But the critic will tell us that the time for 
 inquiry is past, for the question is no longer 
 open. " There is no shadow of doubt on 
 the subject left in the minds of such scholars 
 as Driver, Cheyne, Sanday, Bevan, and 
 Robertson Smith." ^ This list of names is in- 
 tended as a climax to the pretentious periods 
 which precede it, but this grouping together 
 of the living and the dead makes it savour 
 rather of anti-climax. Do these writers 
 monopolise the scholarship of England ? or 
 does the list represent the authorities hostile 
 to the Book of Daniel ? 
 
 It may seem ungracious to add that not 
 one of these distinguished men has ever 
 given proof of fitness for an inquiry so diffi- 
 cult and complex. And as for the treatise 
 here under review, every part of it gives 
 proof of absolute unfitness for the task. It 
 is easy to convict an accused person if all 
 his witnesses are put out of court and re- 
 
 > p. ii8, 
 
 F 
 
82 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 fused a hearing, and his own words and 
 acts are misrepresented and distorted. Yet 
 such is the treatment here accorded to the 
 Book of Daniel. Not one of the champions 
 of faith is allowed a hearing, and the exegesis 
 offered of the prophetic portions of the book 
 would be denounced as a mere travesty by 
 every intelligent student of prophecy. In 
 not- a few instances, indeed, the transparent 
 error and folly of the critic's scheme will be 
 clear even to the ordinary reader. 
 
 Take the Seventy Weeks as an example. 
 In adopting what he terms "the Antiochian 
 hypothesis " of the sceptics, the critic is con- 
 fronted by the fact that "it does not accu- 
 rately correspond with ascertainable dates." 
 " It is true," he says, " that from B.C. 588 to 
 B.C. 164 only gives us 424 years, instead of 
 490 years." But this difficulty he disposes 
 of by declaring that " precise computation 
 is nowhere prevalent in the sacred books." 
 And he adds, "to such purely mundane 
 and secondary matters as close reckoning 
 of dates the Jewish writers show themselves 
 manifestly indifferent." No statement could 
 
" VIOLENT ERRORS " 83 
 
 well be more unwarrantable. A " close 
 reckoning of dates " is almost a speciality 
 of "Jewish writers." No other writings can 
 compare with theirs in this respect. But let 
 us hear what the critic has to urge. 
 
 "That there were differences of compu- 
 tation," he remarks, "as regards Jeremiah's 
 seventy years, even in the age of the exile, 
 is sufficiently shown by the different views as 
 to their termination taken by the Chronicler 
 (2 Chron. xxxvi. 22), who fixes it B.C. 536, 
 and by Zechariah (Zech. i. 12), who fixes it 
 about B.C. 519." This is his only appeal to 
 Scripture, and, as I have already shown, ^ 
 it is but an ignorant blunder, arising from 
 confounding the different eras of the Servi- 
 tude, the Captivity, and the Desolations. 
 
 Dr. Farrar next appeals to "exactly similar 
 mistakes of reckoning " in Josephus, and he 
 enumerates the followinof : — 
 
 'fc> 
 
 " I. In his Jewish Wars (V^. iv. 8) he says that 
 there were 639 years between the second year of 
 Cyrus and the destruction of the Temple by Titus 
 (a.D. 70). Here is an error of more than 30 years. 
 
 ^ Pp. 21-22, ante. 
 
84 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 " 2. In his Antiquities (XX. x.) he says that 
 there were 434 years between the return from the 
 Captivity (B.C. 536) and the reign of Antiochus 
 Eupator (B.C. 164-162). Here is an error of more 
 than 60 years. 
 
 "3. In his Antiquities, XIII. xi. i, he reckons 
 481 years between the return from the Captivity 
 and the time of Aristobulus (B.C. 105-104). Here 
 is an error of some 50 years. 
 
 These "mistakes" will repay a careful 
 scrutiny. In the passage first cited, Josephus 
 reckons the period between the foundation 
 of the first temple by Solomon and its de- 
 struction by Titus as 11 30 years 7 months 
 and 15 days. ** And from the second build- 
 ing of it, which was done by Haggai, in the 
 second year of Cyrus the king," the interval 
 was 639 years and 45 days. This, be it 
 remarked, is given as proof that "precise 
 computation " is nowhere to be looked for 
 in Jewish writers ! The enumeration of the 
 very days, however, renders it certain that 
 Josephus had before him chronological tables 
 of absolute precision. But in computing the 
 second era above mentioned, he refers to the 
 prophet Haggai, who, with Zechariah, pro- 
 
** VIOLENT ERRORS " 85 
 
 moted the building of the second temple in 
 the second year of Darius Hystaspes. As 
 this historian speaks elsewhere of Artaxerxes 
 as Cyrus ^ so here he calls Darius by that 
 title. The period, therefore, was (according 
 to our chronology) from B.C. 520 to a.d. 70 — 
 that is, 589 years — that is, about fifty years 
 less than Josephus reckons. In Dr. Farrar's 
 third example, this same excess of about fifty 
 years again appears ; and if in his second 
 example we substitute 424 years for the 
 doubtful reading of 434 years, we reach a 
 precisely similar result. 
 
 What are we to conclude from these facts? 
 Not that the ancient Jews were careless or 
 indifferent in regard to chronology, which 
 would be flagrantly untrue ; but that their 
 chronological tables, though framed with 
 absolute precision, were marked by errors 
 which amounted to an excess of some fifty 
 years in the very period to which the era of 
 the seventy weeks must be assigned. 
 
 Here, then, we have a solution which is 
 
 ^ Ant.) XI. vi. I. Cyrus, like Cesar and the modern 
 Kaiser, seems to have been used as a title. 
 
86 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 definite and adequate of the only serious 
 objection which the critic can urge against 
 the application of this prophecy to Messiah. 
 Of that application Dr. Farrar writes : — 
 
 " It is finally discredited by the fact that neither 
 our Lord, nor His apostles, nor any of the earhest 
 Christian writers, once appealed to the evidence of 
 this prophecy, which, on the principles of Hengsten- 
 berg and Dr. Pusey, would have been so decisive ! 
 If such a proof lay ready to their hand — a proof 
 definite and chronological — why should they have 
 deliberately passed it over ? " ^ 
 
 The answer is full and clear, that any such 
 appeal would have been discredited, and any 
 such proof refuted, by reference to what (as 
 Josephus shows us) was the received chron- 
 ology of the age they lived in. But what 
 possible excuse can be made for those who, 
 with the full light that history now throws 
 upon the sacred page, not only reject its 
 teaching, but use their utmost ingenuity to 
 darken and distort it? "From the decree 
 to restore Jerusalem unto the Anointed One 
 (or ' the Messiah '), the Prince " — this, to 
 quote Dr. Farrar's own words," describes 
 1 P. 287. 2 P. 275. 
 
** VIOLENT ERRORS " 8/ 
 
 the era here in view. There is no question 
 that the Holy City was restored. There is 
 no question that its restoration was in pur- 
 suance of a decree of Artaxerxes I. The 
 date of that decree is known. From that 
 date unto "the Messiah, the Prince," was 
 exactly the period specified in the prophecy.^ 
 But Dr. Farrar will tell us that the real 
 epoch was not the decree to restore Jeru- 
 salem, but the catastrophe by which Jeru- 
 salem was laid in ruins. " It is obvious," 
 he says, after enumerating "the views of the 
 Rabbis and Fathers," "that not one of them 
 accords with the allusions of the narrative 
 and prayer, except that which makes the 
 destruction of the Temple the termimcs a 
 qzio"'^ This sort of talk is bad enough with 
 those who seek to adapt divine prophecy to 
 what they suppose to be the facts it refers to. 
 But the suggestion here is that a holy and 
 gifted C/iasid, writing in B.C. 164, with the 
 open page of history before him, described 
 the destruction of Jerusalem as "a decree to 
 
 ^ See Ch. \X.,post. 
 2 Pp. 288, 289. 
 
88 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 restore Jerusalem," and then described a 
 period of 424 years as 490 years ! And at 
 the close of the nineteenth century of the 
 Christian era, these puerilities of the scep- 
 tics are solemnly reproduced by the Dean 
 of Canterbury for the enlightenment of Chris- 
 tian England ! To escape from a difficulty 
 by taking refuge in an absurdity is like 
 committing suicide in order to escape from 
 danger. 
 
 Other writers tell us that the era of the 
 seventy weeks dated from the divine promise 
 recorded in Jeremiah xxix. 10.^ But though 
 this view is free from the charge of absurdity 
 it will not bear scrutiny. That was not a 
 "commandment" to build Jerusalem, but 
 merely a promise of future restoration. All 
 these theories, moreover, savour of perverse- 
 ness and casuistry in presence of the fact 
 that Scripture records so definitely the " com- 
 
 ' Mr. Bevan says {Com.^ p. 155) "the '■word' [command- 
 ment] is of course" this prophecy. The force of this "of 
 course" is solely that this destroys the Messianic applica- 
 tion of the angel's message ! The term used is one which 
 occurs more than a thousand times in Scripture with many 
 shades of meaning, and in the Book of Esther it is repeatedly 
 used, as here, of the decree of a Persian king. 
 
" VIOLENT ERRORS " 89 
 
 mandment " in pursuance of which it was in 
 fact rebuilt. 
 
 Neither was it without significance that 
 the prophetic period dated from the restora- 
 tion under Nehemiah. The era of the 
 Servitude had ended with the accession of 
 Cyrus, and the seventy years of the Desola- 
 tions had already expired in the second year 
 of Darius. But the Jews were still without 
 a constitution or a polity. In a word, their 
 condition was then much what it is to-day. 
 It was the decree of the twentieth year 
 of Artaxerxes which restored the national 
 autonomy of Judah. 
 
 And a precedent which is startling in its 
 definiteness may be found to justify the 
 belief that such an era would not begin 
 while the existence of Judah as a nation was 
 in abeyance. I allude to the 480 years of 
 I Kings vi. i, computed from the Exodus 
 to the Temple. If a little of the time and 
 energy which the critics have expended in 
 denouncing that passage as a forgery or a 
 blunder had been devoted to searching for 
 its hidden meaning, their labours might 
 
90 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 perchance have been rewarded. That the 
 chronology of the period was correctly 
 known is plain from the thirteenth chapter 
 of the Acts, which enables us to reckon the 
 very same era as 573 years. How then 
 can this seeming error of 93 years be ac- 
 counted for ? It is p7^ecisely the sum of the 
 several eras of the Servitudes} The infer- 
 
 ^ Acts xiii. ]8-2i gives 40 years in the wilderness, 450 
 years under the Judges, and 40 years for the reign of Saul. 
 To which must be added the 40 years of David's reign, and 
 the first three years of Solomon, for it was in Yixs fourth year 
 that he began to build the Temple. The servitudes were to 
 Mesopotamia for 8 years, to Moab for 18 years, to Canaan 
 for 20 years, to Midian for 7 years, and to the Philistines for 
 40 years. See Judges iii. 8, 14 ; iv. 2, 3 ; vi. i ; xiii. i. 
 But 8+18 + 20 + 7 + 40 years are precisely equal to 93 years. 
 To believe that this is a mere coincidence would involve 
 an undue strain upon our faith. 
 
 Acts xiii. 20 is one of the very many passages where the 
 New Testament Revisers have corrupted the text through 
 neglect of the well-known principles by which experts are 
 guided in dealing with conflicting evidence. It is certain 
 that neither the apostle said, nor the evangelist wrote, that 
 Israel's enjoyment of the land was limited to 450 years, or 
 that 450 years elapsed before the era of the Judges. The text 
 adopted by R.V. is therefore clearly wrong. Dean Alford 
 regards it " as an attempt at correcting the difficult chron- 
 ology of the verse ; " and he adds, " taking the words as 
 they stand, no other sense can be given to them than that 
 the time of the Judges lasted 450 years." That is, as he 
 explains, not that the Judges ruled for 450 years — in which 
 case the accusative would be used, as in verse 18 — but, as 
 
"violent errors 91 
 
 ence therefore is clear that "the 480th year" 
 means the 480th year of national life and 
 national responsibilities. And if this prin- 
 ciple applied to an era apparently historical, 
 we may a fortiori be prepared to find that 
 it governs an era which is mystic and 
 prophetic. 
 
 the use of the dative implies, that the period until Saul, 
 characterised by the rule of the Judges, lasted 450 years. 
 
 The objection that I omit the servitude of Judges x. 7, 8 
 is met by a reference to the R.V. The punctuation of the 
 passage in Bagster's Bible perverts the sense. That servi- 
 tude affected only the tribes beyond Jordan. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PROFESSOR driver's " BOOK OF DANIEL " 
 
 THE EVIDENCE OF THE CANON 
 
 To have answered Dean Farrar's Book of 
 Daniel may appear to some but a cheap 
 and barren victory. For they will urge that 
 if the attack on Daniel were entrusted to 
 abler hands, the issue would be different. 
 But the suggestion is untenable. While the 
 passing years are bringing to light from 
 time to time fresh evidence to confirm 
 the authenticity of the book, the treasury 
 of the critics is exhausted. They have 
 no abler, no more trusted, champion than 
 Professor Driver of Oxford ; yet in his 
 Introduction there is not a single count in 
 the elaborate indictment of Daniel that 
 will not be found in his apparattis criticus. 
 And now, in his Book of Daniel^ after an 
 
 ^ The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges: The 
 
 Book of Daniel^ by the Rev. S. R. Driver, D.D., Regius 
 
 92 
 
DR. DRIVERS "BOOK OF DANIEL. 93 
 
 interval of ten years, he has reproduced 
 these same stock difficulties and objections, 
 and for the most part in the same words. 
 
 That volume is fitted to excite feel- 
 ings of surprise and disappointment. An 
 " Introduction to the Literature of the Old 
 Testament" may fitly cite what German 
 sceptics have written on the Book of Daniel. 
 But it is deplorable that a commentary for 
 the use of "schools and colleges," coming 
 from the pen of an English clergyman, a 
 scholar of high repute, and the occupant 
 of a chair in the University of Oxford, 
 should be merely a modified reproduction 
 of what German rationalism has to urge 
 on one side of a pending controversy. 
 Surely we might have expected some in- 
 dication of independent inquiry and free 
 thought ; but we look for it in vain. The 
 very same criticisms which Dr. Farrar has 
 strung together are once again paraded. 
 
 Professor of Hebrew in the University of Oxford. As 
 compared with the " Daniel " section of the Introduc- 
 tion^ the only new element is the evidence of a further 
 lapse towards the unreasoning scepticism of the "Higher 
 Critics." 
 
94 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 The language, of course, is very different, 
 but the matter is for the most part identical. 
 
 Of these criticisms there is only one 
 which is of vital importance. If, as the 
 critics assert, there was no invasion of 
 Judea and no deportation of Jewish cap- 
 tives in the third year of Jehoiakim, the 
 historical basis upon which the Book of 
 Daniel rests is destroyed, and the book as 
 a whole is discredited. To that criticism, 
 therefore, I invite the reader's close and 
 earnest attention. If he finds it to be 
 sustained, let him regard the controversy 
 as closed. But if he finds it disproved by 
 Scripture, and demonstrated to be erroneous 
 by the strict test of chronology, let him 
 look upon it as discrediting the critics.^ 
 
 As for the rest of these criticisms, what 
 Professor Driver says of some is true of 
 them all : they will influence the mind 
 "according as the critic, upon independent 
 
 1 Pages 14-18, ante, seemed a sufficient reply to Dr. Farrar 
 on this point. But as Dr. Driver blindly follows the same 
 false lead, not even avoiding the blunder of the journey 
 from Carchemish to Babylon across the desert, I add an 
 excursus on the subject. See Appendix I., p. 1^3, post. 
 
DR. driver's *' BOOK OF DANIEL." 95 
 
 grounds, has satisfied himself that the book 
 is the work of a later author or written by 
 Daniel himself." If, therefore, any one of 
 the visions of Daniel can be shown to be 
 a Divine prophecy, the authority of the 
 book is established. And of this, full and 
 incontestable proof is afforded by the fulfil- 
 ment of the vision of the Seventy Weeks. 
 
 The course of study which led me to these 
 results was begun a quarter of a century 
 ago under pressure of doubts whether the 
 Bible could withstand the attacks of the 
 sceptical movement known as the " Higher 
 Criticism." In accordance with my usual 
 habit, I set myself to test the matter by 
 examining the critics' strongest position. 
 For their indictment of the Book of Daniel 
 is supposed to be unanswerable, and I con- 
 fess that at first it seemed to me most 
 formidable. But no one who has much 
 experience of judicial inquiries is ever sur- 
 prised to find that a case which seems con- 
 vincing when presented ex parte, breaks 
 down under cross-examination, or is shat- 
 tered by opposing evidence. And this is 
 
96 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 emphatically true of the sceptical attack on 
 Daniel. 
 
 And let it not be forgotten that the present 
 inquiry is altogether judicial. The question 
 involved is precisely similar in character 
 to issues such as are daily decided in our 
 Courts of Justice. And one of H.M. Judges 
 with a good " special jury " would be a fitter 
 tribunal to deal with it than any company of 
 philologists, however eminent. Due weight 
 would of course be given to the evidence 
 of such men as experts. But the dictum^ 
 so familiar to the lawyer, would not be 
 forgotten, that the testimony which least de- 
 serves credit is that of skilled witnesses, for 
 the judgment of such men becomes warped 
 by their habit of regarding a subject from 
 one point of view only.^ 
 
 The critics maintain that the definiteness 
 of the predictions of Daniel is due to the 
 fact that the book was written after the 
 events referred to ; and further, that its 
 "visions" cease with the reign of Antiochus 
 Epiphanes. The main issues of fact, there- 
 
 > Taylor's Evidence, Part III. Chap. V. § 1877. 
 
DR. DRIVERS "BOOK OF DANIEL 97 
 
 fore, to be decided at such a trial would be 
 these : — 
 
 (i) Was the Book of Daniel in existence 
 in pre-Maccabean days? and 
 
 (2) Was any one of its visions fulfilled in 
 later times? 
 
 And if either of these issues should be 
 found against the critics their whole case 
 would be shattered. 
 
 The discovery of Neptune was due to the 
 fact that astronomers found reason to assume 
 the existence of such a planet. And if the 
 Book of Daniel had been lost, true criticism 
 would assume the presence of a Daniel at the 
 Court of Babylon. For otherwise the story 
 of the exile and return of the Jews would 
 be intelligible only on the assumption of 
 miracles such as those which marked the 
 Exodus. And further ; if the advocates of 
 the pseud-epigraph theory of Daniel were 
 versed in the science of evidence, they would 
 recognise that, on their own hypothesis, 
 the presence of the book in the canon is evi- 
 dence of the existence of the man. For 
 the Sanhedrim would never have accepted it 
 
98 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 unless they had had knowledge of the his- 
 torical facts on which it is based. 
 
 But while the existence of Daniel was 
 indisputable when Dr. Driver wrote his 
 Introduction, it was only "probable" when 
 he came to write his Book of Daniel — a 
 deplorable lapse from true criticism to 
 " Higher Criticism," and from rational belief 
 to unreasoning scepticism. On this point I 
 have already cited the testimony of Ezekiel ; 
 and that testimony is conclusive unless the 
 critics can find some adequate answer to it. 
 The only answer they offer is not even 
 reasonable.^ And as regards the Book of 
 Daniel, the same remark applies, though 
 in a modified degree, to the testimony of 
 I Maccabees.^ 
 
 Even if the testimony of these witnesses 
 stood alone, it would prevail with any im- 
 
 1 See pp. 62-66, iDite. In his Lines of Defence (p. 182) 
 Professor Margoliouth claims to have established that a 
 pre-Maccabean writer, Ben-Sira, " identified the Daniel 
 mentioned by Ezekiel with the Daniel of the book that bears 
 his name," and that he " bases a theological argument on 
 the last verse of Daniel, and borrows phrases from the earlier 
 part of the book." 
 
 - See pp. 66-68, ante. 
 
DR. driver's "book OF DANIEL " 99 
 
 partial tribunal. But when we come to 
 consider the general question of the canon, 
 the weight of proof becomes overwhelming. 
 Apart from the disturbing influence of these 
 controversies, no reasonable person would 
 reject the clear and definite tradition that 
 the completion of the Old Testament canon 
 was the work of the men of the Great 
 Synagogue. In an age when scepticism of 
 a singularly shallow type has been allowed 
 to run riot, it is the fashion to reject that 
 tradition because of the myths and legends 
 which have attached themselves to it. But 
 a soberer scholarship would recognise, first, 
 that this very element is a proof of its 
 antiquity, and of the hold it gained upon the 
 Jewish mind in early times ; and secondly, 
 that if historical facts are to be ignored on 
 this ground the whole volume of ancient 
 history must shrink to very small proportions. 
 But all that concerns me here is to estab- 
 lish that the canon was complete before the 
 Maccabean epoch. ^ And upon this point 
 
 ^ Upon the general question of the canon of the Old 
 Testament the reader will find in Dr. Kyle's book a fair 
 
100 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 I might almost rest the case upon the evi- 
 dence of a single witness. 
 
 As mentioned in an earlier chapter/ Ec- 
 clesiastictts was written not later than about 
 B.C. 200. The object of the book is thus 
 explained by the grandson of the writer, 
 who translated it into Greek not later than 
 B.C. 132^: "My grandfather Jesus, seeing 
 he had much given himself to the read- 
 ing of the law, of the prophets and the 
 other books of the Fathers, and had gotten 
 therein sufficient proficiency, was drawn him- 
 self to write something pertaining to learning 
 and wisdom." Now it is acknowledged 
 
 statement of the arguments in favour of a late date. And 
 any one who is used to frequent our courts of justice will 
 recognise the kinship of those arguments with the case 
 which is always made against any claim to prescriptive or 
 ancient rights. For treatises of a different kind see by all 
 means Dr. Alexander's article on the " Canon," and Dr. 
 Ginsburg's on the " Great Synagogue," in Kittds Cyclo- 
 ieaia; and also Lecture VI. in Pusey's Daniel the Prophet . 
 
 1 P. 52, ante. 
 
 2 The evidence clearly points to an earlier date for both 
 the book and the translation of it. But as I wish to avoid 
 all " collateral issues." I adopt for the sake of argument the 
 dates accepted by the critics. See, however. Dr. Ginsburg's 
 article in Kitto's Cyclopedia, also Edersheim's Life and 
 Times of the Messiah^ vol. i. pp. 26 ff. 
 
DR. DRIVERS "BOOK OF DANIEL lOI 
 
 even by hostile critics that the words "the 
 law and the prophets and the other books," 
 or as he calls them again, "the rest of the 
 books," refer to the sacred writings, and 
 that they imply the existence at that time of 
 a recognised canon. 
 
 " I think it quite incredible," says Dr. 
 Ryle, " that the thrice repeated formula 
 should have been an invention of the Greek 
 translator, and not rather the description 
 of the Hebrew Scriptures commonly used 
 among the Jews."^ The Law, the Prophets, 
 and the Writings — these same words stand 
 upon the title-page of the Jewish Bible of 
 to-day, and no fair and competent tribunal 
 would hesitate to find that that title has 
 covered the same books for more than 
 twenty-three centuries. 
 
 Ben-Sira was "a poetical paraphraser" 
 of the Old Testament, and his book abounds 
 in passages which are imitations of the can- 
 onical writers. And, " as clear examples of 
 such imitation can be found of all the can- 
 onical books, with the doubtful exception of 
 ^ Canon of the Old Testament (2nd ed.), p. 313. 
 
I02 DANIEL IN THE CRITICs' DEN 
 
 the Book of Daniel, these books must, as a 
 whole, have been familiar to Ben-Sira, and 
 must therefore be much anterior to him in 
 date." These words are from Dr. Schechter's 
 Introduction, already quoted,^ and they are 
 substantiated by a list of the passages re- 
 ferred to. That list includes three quota- 
 tions from Daniel ; these however are, of 
 course, rejected by the critics.^ 
 
 Now I confidently maintain that upon the 
 evidence any impartial tribunal would find 
 that the canon was complete before Ben- 
 Sira wrote. But assuming, for the sake 
 of argument, that the inclusion of Daniel 
 is doubtful, the matter stands thus : — It is 
 admitted, (i) that the canon was complete 
 in the second century B.C. ; and (2) that no 
 book was included which was not believed 
 to have been in existence in the days of 
 Nehemiah.^ For the test by which a book 
 was admitted to the canon was its claim to 
 
 ^ P. 54, ante (the quotation is from p. 35). 
 
 2 Hence Dr. Schechter's expression, " the doubtful excep- 
 tion of Daniel." He himself doubts, not the quotations from 
 Daniel, but the "^ exception " maintained by the critics. 
 
 ^ Dr. Ryle, Canofi of the Old Testament, pp. 175 and 188. 
 
DR. DRIVERS "BOOK OF DANIEL IO3 
 
 be inspired ; and the Sanhedrim held that 
 inspiration ceased with the prophets, and 
 that no "prophet" — that is, no divinely in- 
 spired teacher — had arisen in Israel after 
 the Nehemiah era.^ When, therefore, 
 Josephus declares that the Scriptures were 
 "justly believed to be Divine," and that the 
 Jews were prepared " willingly to die for 
 them,"- he is not recording merely the 
 opinion of his contemporaries, but the 
 settled traditional belief of his nation. 
 
 How, then, can the critics reconcile their 
 hypothesis as to the origin of the Book 
 of Daniel with its inclusion in the canon ? 
 
 As regards point (i) above indicated, the 
 Bishop of Exeter's testimony carries with 
 it the special authority which attaches to 
 the statements of a hostile witness. " If," he 
 says, "all the books of * the Kethubim' were 
 known and received in the first century a.d., 
 and if, as we believe, the circumstances of 
 the Jewish people rendered it all but impos- 
 
 * The question of the justice of such beliefs and claims in 
 no way affects the force of my argument. 
 '" Against Apion., i. 8. 
 
104 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 sible for the canon to receive chanoe or 
 augmentation in the first century B.C., we 
 conclude that ' the disputed books ' received a 
 recognition in the last two or three decades of 
 the second century B.C., when John Hyrcanus 
 ruled and the Jews still enjoyed prosperity." 
 
 This ought to decide the whole question. 
 For mark what it means. The critics would 
 have us believe that after the death of Anti- 
 ochus some Jewish Chasid incorporated a his- 
 tory of his reign in a historical romance, 
 casting it into the form of a prophecy sup- 
 posed to have been delivered hundreds of 
 years before ; and that at a time when this 
 was still a matter within living memory, 
 the work was accepted as divinely inspired 
 Scripture, and bracketed with the Psalms 
 of David among the sacred books of the 
 Hebrew nation ! 
 
 We are dealing here, remember, with the 
 acts, not of savages in a barbarous age, but 
 of the religious leaders of the Jews in his- 
 toric times. And the matter in question re- 
 lated to the most solemn and important of 
 all their duties. Moreover, the Sanhedrim 
 
DR. DRIVERS "BOOK OF DANIEL I05 
 
 of the second century b.c. was composed of 
 men of the type of John Hyrcanus ; men 
 famed for their piety and learning ; men who 
 were heirs of all the proud traditions of the 
 Jewish faith, and themselves the sons or suc- 
 cessors of the heroes of the noble Maccabean 
 revolt. And yet we are asked to believe 
 that these men, with their extremely strict 
 views of inspiration and their intense reve- 
 rence for their sacred writings — that these 
 men, the most scrupulous and conservative 
 Church body that the world has ever known 
 — used their authority to smuggle into the 
 sacred canon a book which, ex hypothesis was 
 a forgery, a literary fraud, a religious novel 
 of recent date. 
 
 Such a figment is worthy of its pagan 
 author, but it is wholly unworthy of Chris- 
 tian men in the position of English ecclesi- 
 astics and University Professors. And were 
 it not for the glamour of their names it would 
 be deemed undeserving of notice. But our 
 respect for Church dignitaries of our own 
 times must not make us forget what is due 
 to the memory of Church dignitaries of 
 
I06 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 another age, men whose fidehty to their 
 trust as the divinely appointed custodians of 
 "the oracles of God" has earned for them 
 the gratitude and admiration of the Church 
 for all time. Their fitness, moreover, to judge 
 of the genuineness and authenticity of the 
 Book of Daniel was incomparably greater 
 than could be claimed for any of those who 
 join in this base and silly slander upon their 
 intelligence or their honesty. For if the 
 critics are right, these men who were, I re- 
 peat, the divinely appointed custodians of 
 the Hebrew Scriptures,^ and from whom the 
 Christian Church has received them, were 
 no better than knaves or fools. Let no one 
 start at this language, for it is not a whit too 
 strong. They were utter fools if they were 
 deceived by a literary forgery of their own 
 time ; they were shameless knaves if they 
 shared in a plot to secure the acceptance of 
 the fraud. 
 
 For let it be kept steadily in view that no 
 book would have been thus honoured unless 
 it was believed to be ancient. The "avowed 
 
 ^ Rom. iii. 2. 
 
DR. driver's "book OF DANIEL " IO7 
 
 fiction " theory of Daniel is puerile in its 
 absurdity.^ If the book was not genuine it 
 was a forgery palmed off upon the Sanhe- 
 drim. And like all forgeries of that kind the 
 MS. must have been "discovered" by its 
 author. But the "finding" of such a book 
 at such a period of the national history would 
 have been an event of unparalleled interest 
 and importance. Where then is the record 
 of it ? When it suits them, the critics make 
 great use of the argument from the silence 
 of witnesses ; but in a case like this where 
 that argument has overwhelming force they 
 ignore it altogether. 
 
 Moreover, the suggestion of the critics 
 that the Sanhedrim admitted a book to the 
 canon in the way a library committee adds 
 a volume to their catalogue is grotesque in 
 the extreme. "They never determined a 
 book to be canonical in the sense of intro- 
 
 1 Imagine a meeting of the upper House of Convocation 
 to discuss a proposal to add Dr. Farrar's Life of Christ to 
 the canon of the New Testament ! Quite as grotesquely 
 ridiculous is the suggestion that the Jewish Sanhedrim in 
 the second century B.C. would have entertained the question 
 of adding " an elevating romance " of their own age to the 
 canon of the Old Testament. 
 
I08 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 ducing it into the canon. In every instance 
 in which a writing is said to have been 
 admitted to the canon, the writing had 
 already been in existence for generations, 
 and had for generations been claimed as 
 canonical before the discussions arose in 
 regard to it. In every instance the decision 
 is not that the book shall now be received 
 into the collection of sacred writings, but that 
 the evidence shows it to have been regarded 
 from the first as a part of that collection." ^ 
 
 One point more. While books of great 
 repute, such as Ecclesiasticus and i Mac- 
 cabees, were absolutely excluded from the 
 canon, and even canonical books, such as 
 the Book of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and 
 even Ezekiel were challenged, ''the right 
 of the Book of DaJiiel to carioiticity was never 
 called in question in the Ajicient Synagogue!' '^ 
 
 In disparagement of Daniel the critics 
 point to the extraordinary additions which 
 mark the Septuagint version. But owing to 
 
 ^ Encyc. Americana, article " Bible." 
 ^ Edersheim's Life and Times of the Messiah, vol. ii., 
 App. V. 
 
DR. driver's "book OF DANIEL " IO9 
 
 their want of experience in dealing with 
 evidence, they fail to see what signal proof 
 this affords of the antiquity of the book. 
 The critics themselves allow that the Greek 
 version of Daniel was in existence before 
 I Maccabees was written.^ According to 
 their own case, therefore, the interval between 
 the appearance of the book and its translation 
 into Greek must have been within the memory 
 of the older members of the Sanhedrim. 
 And yet they ask us to believe that though 
 during that interval it was under considera- 
 tion for admission to the canon, it was 
 guarded so carelessly that these additions 
 and corruptions were allowed.^ The Septua- 
 gint version is evidence that Daniel was a 
 pre-Maccabean work : the corruptions of the 
 text which mark that version are evidence 
 that it was in existence long before the 
 Maccabean era. 
 
 ^ The presumption is strong that the LXX. version was 
 in existence at the date to which the critics assign the book 
 itself. But here, as on every other point, I am arguing the 
 question on bases accepted by the critics themselves. 
 
 ^ And Professor Cheyne adopts the suggestion that the 
 Hebrew original of ii. 14 to vii. was allowed to be lost ! 
 (Smith's Bible Diet., art. " Daniel")- 
 
no DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 In view of all this it is not surprising that 
 even a writer so cautious and so fair as 
 Canon Girdlestone should assert that "there 
 is not an atom of ground for the supposition 
 that any of the books or parts of books 
 which constitute our Old Testament were 
 the work of men of that age." "Of one 
 thing," he adds, "we may be quite certain : 
 nothing would be introduced into the 'Sacred 
 Library ' which was not believed to be ' pro- 
 phetic,' and therefore in some sense Divine, 
 and though there were occasionally men after 
 Nehemiah's time who had semi-prophetic 
 gifts, the Jews do not acknowledge them as 
 prophets.^ . . . We look in vain down the 
 remains and traditions of Hebrew history 
 between the age of Nehemiah and the Chris- 
 tian era for the appearance of any men who 
 would venture to add to or take from the 
 sacred library or canon which existed in 
 Nehemiah's days." ^ 
 
 Upon the first of the issues above specified 
 
 1 In proof of this he refers to i Maccabees iv. 46 ; ix. 27 
 (which puts the prophets in the far past) ; and xiv. 41. 
 - The Foundations of the Bible, ch. ii., pp. 8 and 10. 
 
DR. driver's "book OF DANIEL" III 
 
 I therefore claim a decision in favour of the 
 Book of Daniel. I now proceed to state the 
 grounds upon which, with equal confidence, 
 I claim a verdict also on the second. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE VISION OF THE "SEVENTY WEEKS " — 
 THE PROPHETIC YEAR 
 
 As the solution of the problem of the Seventy 
 Weeks is my personal contribution to the 
 Daniel controversy, I may be pardoned for 
 dealing with the subject here in greater 
 detail, albeit this involves some repetition. 
 It is all the more necessary, moreover, be- 
 cause in his recent work Professor Driver 
 has adopted the laboured efforts of the 
 foreign sceptics to evade the Messianic refer- 
 ence of the vision. Indeed, his exposition 
 of the passage reminds us of that sort of 
 dream in which words never have their 
 natural meaning and events always happen 
 in some unexpected way. 
 
 In the ninth chapter of Daniel the scene 
 is laid in Babylon, and the occasion is the 
 approaching end of the ** Desolations," an 
 
THE "SEVENTY WEEKS II3 
 
 era which the critics without exception con- 
 found with either the " Servitude " or the 
 "Captivity."^ "I Daniel," the writer tells 
 us, "understood by the books the number 
 of the years whereof the word of the Lord 
 came to Jeremiah the prophet for the accom- 
 plishing of the desolations of Jerusalem, even 
 seventy years." ^ Then follows the record 
 of his passionately earnest prayer on behalf 
 of his city and his people,^ which prayer 
 brings in answer the angel's message. Here 
 is the text of Dan. ix. 24-27 (R.V.)*: — 
 
 " Seventy weeks are decreed upon thy people 
 and upon thy holy city, to finish transgression and 
 to make an end of sins and to make reconciliation 
 for iniquity and to bring in everlasting righteous- 
 ness and to seal up vision and prophecy and to 
 anoint the most holy. Know therefore and discern 
 that from the going forth of the commandment to 
 restore and to build Jerusalem unto the anointed 
 one (or Messiah) the prince shall be seven weeks 
 and threescore and two weeks : it shall be built 
 again with street and moat, even in troublous times. 
 
 ^ See pp. 21, 22, ante. 
 
 2 Ver. 2. 2 Ver. 19. 
 
 ^ As to the punctuation of this passage, see Appendix 
 III., p. 167, post. 
 
 H 
 
114 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 And after the threescore and two weeks shall the 
 anointed one (or Messiah) be cut off and shall 
 have nothing: and the people of the prince that 
 shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary ; 
 and his end shall be with a flood, and even unto 
 the end shall be war ; desolations are determined. 
 And he shall make a firm covenant with many for 
 one week: and for the half of the week he shall 
 cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease." 
 
 Well may Professor Driver and Dean 
 Farrar comment upon the hopeless diverg- 
 ence v^hich marks " the bewildering mass of 
 explanations " offered by the numberless ex- 
 positors of this passage. But there is no 
 reason why the intelligent reader should 
 follow these eminent critics who, in their 
 '* bewilderment," have adopted the most pre- 
 posterous interpretation of it ever proposed. 
 For such indeed is the suggestion that any 
 devout Jew — whether the prophet of the 
 Exile or a Maccabean zealot, it matters not 
 which — could thus anticipate " the complete 
 redemption of Israel " ^ apart from the advent 
 of Messiah. It is absolutely certain that 
 the vision points to the coming of Christ, 
 
 1 The words are Professor Driver's {Daniel, p. 135). 
 
THE "SEVENTY WEEKS " II5 
 
 and any other view of it is indeed "a resort 
 of desperation." 
 
 May I now invite my reader to follow me 
 in the path which I myself have traversed in 
 seeking the explanation of the vision ? Re- 
 jecting all mystical or strained interpreta- 
 tions, let him insist on taking the words in 
 their simple and obvious meaning ; and with 
 the help of a key which, though long over- 
 looked, is ready at hand, he will find the 
 solution, full and clear, of what may have 
 seemed a hopeless enigma. 
 
 Here was a man trained by his Scriptures 
 to look for a Messiah whose advent would 
 bring fulness of blessing to his people and 
 city.^ But his people were in captivity and his 
 city was in ruins. And having himself already 
 passed the allotted span of life, he could not 
 hope to outlive the period of the Divine 
 judgment of the Desolations, of which 
 some seventeen years were still unexpired. 
 So he set himself to plead for light ; and the 
 answer came that the realisation of the pro- 
 
 ^ With those who regard the Book of Daniel as a pseud- 
 epigraph my argument here should have special force. 
 
Il6 DANIEL IN THE CRITICs' DEN 
 
 mised Messianic blessings was deferred until 
 the close of an era of seven times the seventy 
 years of the Desolations — not seventy years, 
 but "seventy weeks" of years. ^ 
 
 These seventy weeks, moreover, were 
 divided thus — 7 + 62 + i. The period "unto 
 Messiah the prince " was to be " seven 
 weeks and threescore and two weeks ; " 
 and at the close of the middle era— "after 
 the threescore and two weeks " — Messiah 
 was to be "cut off." In other words, the 
 presentation and rejection of Messiah were 
 to be 69 weeks, or 483 years, from the epoch 
 of the era. 
 
 The first question, then, which claims 
 attention is the character of the year of 
 which this prophetic era is composed. Here 
 expositor after expositor and critic after critic 
 has held in his hand the key to the whole 
 problem, but has thrown it away unused. 
 
 1 With the Jew the effect of his laws was "to render the 
 word week capable of meaning a seven of years almost as 
 naturally as a seven of days. Indeed the generality of the 
 word would have this effect at any rate. Hence its use to 
 denote the latter in prophecy is not mere arbitrary sym- 
 bolism, but the employment of a not unfamiliar and easily 
 understood language." — Smith's Bib. Did,, art. " Week." 
 
THE "seventy weeks II7 
 
 All are agreed that the " seventy weeks " 
 of verse 24 are seven times the seventy 
 years of verse 2 ; if, then, the duration of 
 the seventy years of the Desolations can be 
 ascertained, the problem is solved. 
 
 Seventy years was the appointed dura- 
 tion of the Servitude to Babylon.^ But the 
 stubborn refusal of the people to submit to 
 that judgment,^ or to profit by the further 
 chastisement of the Captivity, which followed 
 eight or nine years afterwards, brought on 
 them the terrible scourge of the Desolations.^ 
 The essential element in this last judgment 
 was not merely ruined cities, but a land laid 
 desolate by a hostile invasion, the effects 
 of which were perpetuated by famine and 
 pestilence, the continuing proofs of the 
 Divine displeasure. "* The Desolations, there- 
 fore, were reckoned from the day the capital 
 
 ^ Jer. xxix. lo, and note the R.V. "/^r (not at) Babylon." 
 The figment of a seventy years' captivity, though so gene- 
 rally held, is a blunder. The Captivity lasted only sixty-two 
 years. 
 
 2 Jer. xxvii. 6, 17 ; xxviii. 14. 
 
 3 This was foretold in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, after 
 the Servitude had began (Jer. xxv. i-ii). 
 
 ■* Jer. xxvii. 13 ; Hag. ii. 17. 
 
Il8 DANIEL IN THE CRITICs' DEN 
 
 was invested, the loth day of the loth month 
 in the ninth year of Zedekiah.^ This was the 
 epoch of the judgment as revealed to the 
 prophet Ezekiel in his exile ;^ and for four- 
 and-twenty centuries it has been observed 
 as a fast by the Jews in every land. 
 
 As an interval of seventeen years elapsed 
 between the epoch of the Servitude and that 
 of the Desolations, so by seventeen years 
 the second period overlapped the first. And 
 this explains the seemingly inexplicable fact 
 that a few refractory Samaritans were allowed 
 to thwart the execution of the work expressly 
 ordered by the edict of Cyrus. Until the 
 era of the Desolations had run its course 
 the Divine judgment which rested upon the 
 land vetoed the rebuilding of the sacred 
 Temple. 
 
 As the epoch of that era is recorded with 
 absolute definiteness, so also is its close. It 
 ended upon the 24th day of the 9th month 
 in the second year of Darius Hystaspes of 
 
 1 2 Kings XXV. I ; Jer. Hi. 4. The event, of course, put an 
 end to all agricultural pursuits. 
 - Ezek. xxiv. i, 2. 
 
THE "SEVENTY WEEKS II9 
 
 Persia. The reader will do well here to 
 peruse the prophecy of Haggai and the first 
 chapter of Zechariah. I will quote but a 
 single sentence of each : " Then the angel 
 of the Lord answered and said, O Lord of 
 hosts, how long wilt Thou not have mercy 
 on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah, 
 against which Thou hast had indignation 
 these threescore and ten years ?"^ "Con- 
 sider now from this day and upward, from 
 the four-and-twentieth day of the ninth 
 month, even from the day that the founda- 
 tion of the Lord's temple was laid, consider 
 it. . . . From this day will I bless yoti" ^ 
 
 Now the Julian date of the loth day 
 of the loth month in the ninth year of 
 Zedekiah was the 15th December, B.C. 
 589 ; and that of the 24th day of the 
 9th month in the second year of Darius 
 Hystaspes was the 17th December, B.C. 
 520. The intervening period, therefore, 
 was exactly sixty-nine years. But sixty- 
 nine years contain 25,200 days, the precise 
 
 ^ Zech. i. 12. 
 
 ^ Hag. ii. 18, 19; compare Ezra iv. 24 ; v. 1,2. 
 
I20 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 equivalent of seventy years of 360 days.^ 
 It is clear, therefore, that, as the era of 
 the Desolations was a Divine judgment 
 upon Judah, the period was measured with 
 all the accuracy of a judicial sentence. 
 
 Even if this stood alone it would be 
 conclusive. But, further, we are expressly 
 told that the era of the Desolations was 
 fixed at seventy years, because of the 
 neglect of the Sabbatic years. ^ Therefore 
 we might expect to find that a period of 
 70 X 7 years, measured back from the 
 end of the Desolations, would bring us to 
 the time when Israel entered into their 
 full national privileges, and thus incurred 
 
 ^ 365^x69 = 25,200, and 360x70 = 25,200. I may here 
 explain that in giving historical dates I follow secular 
 historians and chronologists, and not writers on prophecy, 
 who are too prone to "cook" the chronology to suit their 
 schemes of interpretation. In the above instance I follow 
 Clinton, but with this difference — that he wrote in ignorance 
 of the Mishna rule that a king's reign was always reckoned 
 from Nisan (see App. IV., post). The thirty-seventh year 
 of the Captivity, reckoned from the eighth year of Nebu- 
 chadnezzar, was the first year of Evil-Merodach (2 Kings 
 XXV. 27), i.e. 561, and that date fixes the whole chronology, 
 as Clinton shows {Fasti Hel., vol. i. p. 319). Zedekiah's 
 reign, therefore, dates from Nisan, B.C. 597, and not 598. 
 
 2 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21 ; cf. Lev. xxvi. 34, 35. 
 
THE "seventy weeks" 12 1 
 
 their full responsibilities. And such, in 
 fact, will be found to be the case. From 
 the year after the dedication of Solomon's 
 temple to the year before the foundation 
 of the second temple was a period of 490 
 years of 360 days.^ 
 
 But even this is not all. No one doubts 
 that the visions of the Revelation refer to 
 the visions of Daniel, and for this purpose 
 they may be read together. And there 
 we find a part of the prophetic era sub- 
 divided into the days of which it is com- 
 posed. Half of one week of the vision 
 is twice described as forty-two months ; ^ 
 and twice as 1260 days.^ But 1260 days 
 are exactly equal to forty-two months of 
 thirty days, or three and a half years of 
 360 days. 
 
 To English ears the suggestion may seem 
 fanciful that a chronoloo;-ical era should be 
 
 1 The temple was dedicated in the eleventh year of 
 Solomon (B.C. 1005). The Desolations ended, as above 
 stated, in the second year of Darius Hystaspes (B.C. 520). 
 The intervening period, reckoned exclusively^ was 483 years, 
 or 70 X 7 luni-solar years of 360 days. 
 
 2 Rev. xi. 2 ; xiii. 5. 
 2 Rev. xi. 3 ; xii. 6. 
 
122 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 reckoned thus in luni-solar years. But it 
 was not so with those for whom the prophecy- 
 was given. Such, it is reasonably certain, 
 was the form of year then in use both at 
 Babylon and at Jerusalem. Such was in 
 fact the year of the Noachian age.^ Tradi- 
 tion testifies that it was the year which 
 Abraham knew in his Chaldean home, and 
 which was afterwards preserved in his family. 
 And Sir Isaac Newton avers that 
 
 "All nations, before the just length of the solar 
 year was known, reckoned months by the course 
 of the moon, and years by the return of winter 
 and summer, spring and autumn ; and in making 
 calendars for their festivals, they reckoned thirty 
 days to a lunar month, and twelve lunar months 
 to a year, taking the nearest round numbers, 
 whence came the division of the ecliptic into 360 
 degrees." 
 
 And in quoting this statement. Sir G. C. 
 Lewis declares that 
 
 "All credible testimony and all antecedent proba- 
 bility lead to the result that a solar year containing 
 
 ^ 150 days being specified as the interval between the 
 17th day of the 2nd month and the 17th day of the 7th 
 month (Gen. vii. 11 ; viii. 3, 4). 
 
THE "SEVENTY WEEKS 1 23 
 
 twelve lunar months, determined within certain 
 limits of error, has been generally recognised by 
 the nations adjoining the Mediterranean from a 
 remote antiquity." ^ 
 
 In view of all this mass of cumulative 
 proof, the conclusion may be regarded as 
 raised above the sphere of controversy or 
 doubt, that the prophetic year is not the 
 Julian year of 365^ days, but the ancient 
 year of 360 days. 
 
 * Astronomy of the Ancients, ch. i. § 7. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FULFILMENT OF THE VISION OF THE 
 
 " WEEKS " 
 
 In view of the proofs adduced in the preced- 
 ing chapter, it may now be accepted as a 
 demonstrated fact that the unit of the pro- 
 phetic era of the seventy weeks is the luni- 
 solar year of the ancient world. Our next 
 inquiry must be directed to ascertaining the 
 epoch of that era. 
 
 The language of the vision is simple and 
 clear : " From the going forth of the com- 
 mandment to restore and to build Jerusalem 
 unto Messiah the Prince, shall be seven 
 weeks and threescore and two weeks." Here 
 at least we might suppose that no question 
 could arise. But with Professor Driver, fol- 
 lowing the lead of the wildest and worst of 
 the foreign sceptical expositors, "the com- 
 mandment to rebuild Jerusalem " becomes 
 
 the prophecy that Jerusalem would be rebuilt ; 
 
 124 
 
FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY 1 25 
 
 " Messiah, the Prince " becomes Cyrus, King 
 of Persia ; ^ and by a false punctuation which 
 divides the sentence in the middle," the 
 sixty-two weeks become the period for which 
 the city was to be restored. I appeal to the 
 reader to reject this nightmare system of 
 interpretation, and to follow the early fathers 
 and the best of the modern expositors in 
 accepting the words in their plain and natural 
 meaning. 
 
 What then was the "commandment," or 
 edict, ox firman to build Jerusalem.-* The 
 Book of Ezra records three several decrees 
 of Persian kings, relating to the Jews. The 
 opening verses record the edict of Cyrus, 
 which authorised the return of the exiles. 
 But this decree mentioned only the temple 
 and not the city ; and moreover it referred 
 to the era of the Servitude, and not of the 
 Desolations, which later era it was that 
 Daniel had in view.^ The sixth chapter 
 
 1 Albeit the vision was given in 538 B.C., and the restora- 
 tion under Cyrus was in 536 ! 
 
 2 See Appendix IIL, p. 167. 
 
 ^ Canon Rawlinson assumes that the temple was fifteen 
 years in building {Five Great Men, iv. 398). But this is 
 vetoed by Scripture. Ezra iii. 8-1 1 records that the founda- 
 
126 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 records a decree issued by Darius Hys- 
 taspes to confirm the decree of Cyrus, 
 but this in no way extended the scope 
 of the earHer edict. The seventh chapter 
 records a third decree, issued by Artax- 
 erxes Longimanus in his seventh year, 
 but this again related merely to the temple 
 and its worship.^ The Book of Ezra there- 
 fore will be searched in vain for what we 
 seek, but the book which follows it gives it 
 fully and explicitly. 
 
 The Book of Nehemiah opens by relating 
 that while at Susa, where he was in attend- 
 ance as cupbearer to the king, " an honour 
 of no small account in Persia,"^ he learned 
 from certain of his brethren who had just 
 arrived from Judea that the Jews there were 
 " in great affliction and reproach ; " " the wall 
 of Jerusalem also was broken down, and the 
 gates thereof were burned with fire." ^ The 
 next chapter relates that while discharging 
 
 tion was then laid, but though the altar was set up and 
 sacrifices renewed (iii. 3, 6), the foundation was again laid 
 fifteen years later, for not a stone of the house had yet been 
 placed (Hag. ii. 10, 15, 18). 
 
 1 Ezra vii. 19, 27. ^ Herodotus^ iii. 34. 
 
 3 Neh. i. 2, 3. 
 
FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY 12/ 
 
 the duties of his high office, Artaxerxes 
 noticed his distress, and called for an expla- 
 nation of it. " Let the king live for ever," 
 Nehemiah answered, " why should not my 
 countenance be sad, when the city, the place 
 of my fathers' sepulchres, lieth waste, and the 
 gates thereof are burned with fire ? " " For 
 what dost thou make request?" the king de- 
 manded. To which Nehemiah answered, 
 "That thou wouldest send me unto Judah, 
 unto the city of my fathers' sepulchres, that 
 I MAY BUILD IT." ^ Artaxerxes forthwith 
 granted the petition, and issued an edict to 
 give effect to it. This occurred in the be- 
 ginning of the Jewish year ; and before the 
 Feast of Tabernacles, in the seventh month, 
 Jerusalem was once more a city, enclosed by 
 gates and ramparts. 
 
 Of course there must have been many 
 streets of inhabited houses in Jerusalem ever 
 since the first return of the exiles. But, 
 as Dr. Tregelles justly says,^ "the very 
 existence of the place as a city depended 
 upon such a decree " as that of the twentieth 
 
 1 Neh. ii. 5. 2 Daiiiel, p, 98. 
 
128 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 year of Artaxerxes. Once, at an earlier 
 period, work which the Jews were executing 
 under the decree of Cyrus had been stopped 
 on the false charge that its design was to 
 restore the city. "A rebellious city" it had 
 ever proved, the local officials declared in 
 reporting to the king; and they added, "//" 
 this city be builded^ and the walls thereof set 
 up again, by this means thou shalt have no 
 portion on this side the river." ^ The edict 
 of Cyrus was in keeping with the general 
 policy of toleration, to which the inscriptions 
 bear testimony : it was a wholly different 
 matter to allow the conquered race to set up 
 again the famous fortifications of Jerusalem, 
 and to restore under Nehemiah the old polity 
 of the Judges. This was a revival of the 
 political existence of Judah ; and therefore 
 no doubt it was that the event was divinely 
 chosen as the beginning of the prophetic 
 era of the seventy weeks.^ 
 
 ^ i.e. Euphrates. Ezra iv. 16-22. 
 
 2 For the same reason, e.g., the " Servitudes " were 
 ignored in reckoning the time of Israel's national respon- 
 sibilities (see p. 90, ante). 
 
 This sudden change in the policy of the Persian court was 
 
FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY 1 29 
 
 It is certain, moreover, that this edict of 
 Artaxerxes is the only ** commandment to 
 restore and build Jerusalem" recorded in 
 history, and that under this " command- 
 ment" Jerusalem was in fact rebuilt. Un- 
 less, therefore, the nightmare system of 
 interpretation must prevail, we may accept 
 it, not as a plausible theory or a happy 
 guess, but as a definite fact, that the seventy 
 weeks are to be computed from the date of 
 the issuing of this decree. 
 
 The date of it is expressly recorded 
 by Nehemiah. It was made in the begin- 
 ning of the Jewish year in the twentieth 
 year of the king's reign. And the Julian 
 date of the first Nisan in the twentieth 
 year of Artaxerxes is the 14th March b.c. 
 445.^ Here let me quote the words of the 
 vision once again. " From the going forth 
 of the commandment to restore and build 
 
 not due merely to the influence of a popular minister. In 
 his History of the Jews, Dean Milman accounts for it by 
 "the foreign history of the times." The terms imposed on 
 Persia by the victorious Athenians seem to have rendered 
 it important to make Jerusalem a fortified city. 
 ^ See App. v., p. i'](),post. 
 
 I 
 
I30 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 Jerusalem unto Messiah the Prince shall be 
 seven weeks and threescore and two weeks. 
 . . . And after the threescore and two weeks 
 shall the Messiah be cut off." ^ 
 
 If, therefore, the vision be a Divine pro- 
 phecy, an era of " sixty-nine weeks," that is, 
 of 483 prophetic years, reckoned from the 
 14th March B.C. 445, should close with the 
 public presentation and death of " Messiah 
 the Prince." 
 
 No student of the Gospels can fail to see 
 that the Lord's last visit to Jerusalem was not 
 only in fact but in intention the crisis of His 
 ministry. From the time that the accredited 
 leaders of the nation had rejected His Mes- 
 sianic claims, He had avoided all public 
 recoofnition of those claims. But now His 
 testimony had been fully given, and the 
 purpose of His entry into the capital was to 
 openly proclaim His Messiahship and to re- 
 ceive His doom. Even His apostles them- 
 selves had again and again been charged that 
 
 ^ Not " after sixty-two weeks " — which might mean sixty- 
 two weeks reckoned from the beginning of the era — but 
 *' after the sixty-two weeks " which follow the seven : i.e. at 
 the close of the sixty-ninth week of the era. 
 
FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY I3I 
 
 they should not make Him known ; but now 
 He accepted the acclamations of " the whole 
 multitude of the disciples." And when the 
 Pharisees protested, He silenced them with 
 the indignant rebuke, " I tell you that if 
 these should hold their peace the stones 
 would immediately cry out."^ These words 
 can only mean that the divinely appointed 
 time had arrived for the public announce- 
 ment of His Messiahship, and that the Divine 
 purpose could not be thwarted. 
 
 The full significance of the words which 
 follow is lost in our Authorised Version. As 
 the cry was raised by His disciples, " Ho- 
 sanna to the Son of David, blessed is the 
 King of Israel that cometh in the name of 
 the Lord," He looked off towards the Holy 
 City and exclaimed, ** If thou also hadst 
 known, even on this day, the :hings that 
 belong to thy peace — but now they are hid 
 from thine eyes ! " ^ The nation had already 
 
 ^ Luke xix. 39, 40. 
 
 2 R.V. reads, " If thou hadst known in this day" ; A.V. 
 reads, " this thy day." Alford's note is, " thou also, as well 
 as these My disciples." And so also the Speaker's Coin 
 mentary. 
 
132 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 rejected Him, but this was the fateful day 
 when their decision must be irrevocable. 
 And we are expressly told that it was the ful- 
 filment of the prophecy, "Shout, O daughter 
 of Jerusalem ; behold thy King cometh unto 
 thee."^ It was the only occasion on which 
 His kingly claims were publicly announced. 
 And no other day in all His ministry will 
 satisfy the words of Daniel's vision.^ 
 
 And the date of that first " Palm Sunday " 
 can be ascertained with certainty. No year 
 in the whole field of ancient history is more 
 definitely indicated than that of the begin- 
 ning of our Lord's public ministry. Accord- 
 ing to the Evangelist it was "the fifteenth 
 year of Tiberius Caesar."^ Now "the reign 
 of Tiberius, as beginning from 19th August, 
 A.D. 14, was as well known a date in the time 
 of Luke as the reign of Queen Victoria is in 
 
 * Zech. ix. 9 ; Matt. xxi. 4, 5. 
 
 2 The only other possible day would be either the day of 
 His birth or the first day of His public ministry. But neither 
 date is recorded. As regards the nativity, the only thing 
 reasonably certain is, that it occurred neither in the year 
 nor on the day to which it is popularly assigned. 
 
 ^ Luke iii. i. 
 
FULFILMENT OF THE PROPHECY 1 33 
 
 our own day."^ The Evangelist, moreover, 
 with a prophetic anticipation of the perverse- 
 ness of expositors and " reconcilers," goes 
 on to name six prominent public men as 
 holding specified positions in the fifteenth 
 year of Tiberius, and each one of these is 
 known to have actually held the position 
 thus assigned to him in the year in question. 
 
 As, therefore, the first Passover of the 
 Lord's ministry was that of Nisan, a.d. 29, 
 the date of the Passion is thus fixed by 
 Scripture itself. For it is no longer neces- 
 sary to offer proof that the crucifixion took 
 place at the fourth Passover of the ministry. 
 According to the Jewish custom, our Lord 
 went up to Jerusalem on the 8th Nisan,^ 
 which, as we know, fell that year upon a 
 Friday. And having spent the Sabbath 
 at Bethany, He entered the Holy City 
 the following day, as recorded in the 
 Gospels. 
 
 The Julian date of that loth Nisan was 
 
 ^ Lewin, Fasti Sacri, p. liii. He adds, " And no single 
 case can be produced in which the years of Tiberius were 
 reckoned in any other manner." 
 
 2 John xi. 55, xii. i ; Josephus, Wars, vi. 5, 3. 
 
134 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 Sunday the 6th April, a.d. 32.^ What then 
 was the length of the period intervening be- 
 tween the issuing of the decree to rebuild 
 Jerusalem and this public advent of " Messiah 
 the Prince" — between the 14th March, B.C. 
 445, and the 6th April, a.d. 32 ? The inter- 
 val WAS EXACTLY AND TO THE VERY DAY 
 173,880 DAYS, OR SEVEN TIMES SIXTY-NINE 
 PROPHETIC YEARS OF 360 DAYS.^ 
 
 1 See Appendices IV., p. 171 and VI., p. iy6,post. 
 
 ^ From B.C. 445 to A.D. 32 is 476 years = 173,740 days 
 (476 X 365)+ 116 days for leap years. And from 14th March 
 to 6th April (reckoned inclusively according to Jewish prac- 
 tice) is 24 days. But 173,740+116 + 24=173,880. And 69 
 X7X 360=173,880. 
 
 It must be borne in mind here that in reckoning years 
 from B.C. to A.D. one year must always be omitted ; for, of 
 course, the interval between B.C. i and A.D. i is not two 
 years but one year. In fact B.C. i ought to be called B.C. o ; 
 and it is so described by astronomers, with whom B.C. 445 is 
 — 444 (see App.V., p. ij/\,posf). And again, as the Julian year 
 is 1 1 m. 10.46 s., or about the 129th part of a day, longer than 
 the mean solar year, the Julian calendar has three leap years 
 too many in every four centuries. This error is corrected by 
 the Gregorian reform, which reckons three secular years out 
 of four as common years. For instance, 1700, 1800, and 1900 
 were common years, and 2000 will be a leap year. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 
 
 It will be obvious to the intelligent and 
 thoughtful that unless the conclusions re- 
 corded in the preceding chapter can in some 
 way be disproved or got rid of, there is 
 an end of the Daniel controversy. The 
 reader, therefore, will be interested to know 
 what reply Professor Driver has to give 
 to them. 
 
 After noticing the solution of the Seventy 
 Weeks proposed by Julius Africanus, the 
 father of Christian chronologers,^ he pro- 
 ceeds : — 
 
 "This view has been revived recently, in a 
 slightly modified form, by Dr. Robert Anderson, 
 according to whom the 'year' of Daniel was the 
 ancient luni-solar year of 360 days ; reckoning, 
 then, 483 years ( = 69 'weeks'), of 360 days each, 
 from I Nisan, B.C. 445, the date of the edict of 
 
 1 About A.D. 200. 
 135 
 
136 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS* DEN 
 
 Artaxerxes, Dr. Anderson arrives at the lOth of 
 Nisan in the i8th year of Tiberius Caesar, the day on 
 which our Lord made His pubhc entry into Jeru- 
 salem (Luke xix. 37 ff.). Upon this theory, how- 
 ever, even supposing the objections against B.C. 445 
 as the terminus a quo to be waived, the seventieth 
 week remains unexplained." 
 
 There is one objection, I admit, to the B.C. 
 445 date ; it violates the canon of interpreta- 
 tion, that Scripture never means what it says ! 
 But waiving that point, the only criticism 
 which the highest scholarship has to offer 
 upon my scheme is that it leaves the seven- 
 tieth week "unexplained." 
 
 This objection would be irrelevant even if 
 it were well founded. But as a matter of 
 fact the book to which Dr. Driver refers 
 his readers deals fully and in much detail 
 with the seventieth week.^ One of the 
 blunders of this controversy is that of sup- 
 
 ^ His reference is to The Coming Prince, or the Seventy 
 Weeks of Daniel, 5th ed. The first edition of the book 
 appeared in 1881 : the sixth is now current. The scheme 
 has thus been before the pubHc for twenty years ; and during 
 that time every detail of it has been subjected to the most 
 searching criticism, both here and in America ; but neither 
 error nor flaw has been detected in it. 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION I 37 
 
 posing that the era of the seventy weeks 
 was to end either with the advent or the 
 death of Christ. Here the language of 
 Daniel is explicit : the period " unto Messiah 
 the Prince " was to be, not seventy weeks, 
 but sixty-nine weeks. The crucifixion is 
 the event which marks the end of the sixty- 
 ninth week ; the seventieth week ends with 
 the restoration of the Jews to prosperity and 
 blessing. Those who regard that week as 
 cancelled hold an intelligible position. And 
 the same may be said of those who maintain 
 that it still awaits fulfilment. But the fig- 
 ment that a prophecy of temporal and spiri- 
 tual good for the Jews was fulfilled by their 
 rejection and ruin is one of the very wildest 
 vagaries of interpretation.^ 
 
 Upon this point three different opinions 
 prevail. By some the restoration of the 
 Jews is dismissed as a dream of Hebrew 
 poetry. Others consider that the Jewish 
 
 1 Another amazing vagary of the same type is that Dan. 
 ix. 27 means that our Lord made some sort of seven years' 
 covenant with the Jews at the beginning of His ministry, 
 and that it was broken by His death. See The Coming 
 Prince^ ch. xiv., and especially pp. 182, 183. 
 
138 DANIEL IN THE CRITICs' DEN 
 
 promises were finally forfeited by the rejec- 
 tion of Christ, and now belong to the Gen- 
 tile Church. And others again are bold 
 enough to believe that God will make good 
 every promise and every prophecy the Bible 
 contains, but that the realisation of the dis- 
 tinctive blessings of the favoured nation is 
 postponed until the close of this Gentile dis- 
 pensation. I am not ashamed to rank my- 
 self in this third category ; and following the 
 teaching of the Anti-Nicene Fathers — for 
 this is precisely the sort of question as to 
 which apostolic tradition is least likely to 
 have been corrupted — to hold that the seven- 
 tieth week, and the events pertaining to it, 
 belong to the future. 
 
 But what bearing has all this upon the 
 point at issue ? The question here is whether 
 the vision of the seventy weeks was a mere 
 human prediction or a Divine prophecy. 
 The popular view of the matter appears to 
 be that, as the advent of Christ was expected 
 about the time when He actually appeared, 
 there was nothing extraordinary in a chrono- 
 logical forecast of the event. But this be- 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 1 39 
 
 trays a strange misconception and confusion 
 of thought. 
 
 True it is that the advent of their Messiah 
 was a hope universally cherished by the Jews 
 — a fact which, as I have urged, proves the 
 error and folly of denying the Messianic 
 interpretation of the 9th of Daniel. But if 
 His coming was expected nineteen centuries 
 ago, the hope was based on these very 
 visions. For, apart from Daniel, Scripture 
 contains no hint of a time limit within which 
 the advent was to take place. Apart from 
 Daniel, indeed, the theory was plausible 
 that it would herald the dawn of the seventh 
 millennium of the world's history — an epoch 
 which, by the Jewish calendar, is even now 
 in the distant future. But here is a book 
 which specifies the precise date of the 
 presentation and death of Christ, and the 
 prediction has been fulfilled. Had it been 
 fulfilled within the year, the result might well 
 stagger unbelief. And if the apparent margin 
 of error had been a month, the explana- 
 tion would be obvious and adequate, that 
 Nehemiah does not record the day of the 
 
140 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 month on which the edict was signed/ But, 
 as a matter of fact, it was fulfilled with 
 absolute accuracy, and to the very day. 
 
 Let us for a moment ignore the controversy 
 about the date of Daniel — whether in the 
 second century B.C., or in the sixth, and 
 confine our attention to this simple issue : 
 Could the prediction have been a mere guess 
 by some learned and pious Jew ? If we refer 
 this question to a mathematician he will ask 
 what data there were to work upon ; and on 
 hearing that there were none, he will tell us 
 that in such circumstances the chance of 
 accuracy would be so small, and the pro- 
 bability of error so great, that neither the 
 one nor the other could be expressed 
 arithmetically in figures. The calculation, 
 in fact, would become lost in infinity. And 
 
 ^ 1 would not be understood as urging this. I presume 
 the banquet at which the edict was issued took place on 
 New Year's day. Nehemiah began to build the walls on 
 the third day of the fifth month (Neh. vi. 15). Ezra's 
 journey from Babylon to Jerusalem occupied precisely four 
 months (Ezra vii. 9), and in " the unchanging east " 
 Nehemiah's journey from Susa would have occupied as 
 long. I conclude, therefore, that he set out in the beginning 
 of Nisan. 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION I4I 
 
 this being so, any attempt to dismiss the facts 
 and figures set forth in the preceding chapter 
 as being accidental coincidences is not intel- 
 ligent scepticism, but a crass misbelief which 
 is sheer credulity. 
 
 And this brings us back again to the 
 question, What is the character, and what 
 the credentials, of the book which contains 
 this most marvellous vision ? The critics 
 themselves admit that the authority of the 
 Book of Daniel was unchallenged by Jews 
 and Christians alike for at least two thousand 
 years. It was not that the question of its 
 claims was never raised ; for Porphyry the 
 Neo-Platonist devoted to the subject one of 
 his discourses ag-ainst the Christians. But 
 Porphyry's attack evoked no response in 
 the Christian camp until modern German in- 
 fidelity began its crusade against the Bible. 
 The visions of Daniel afforded an un- 
 answerable testimony to the reality of in- 
 spiration, and their voice had to be silenced. 
 No matter to what date the 53rd chapter 
 of Isaiah be assigned, the sceptics would 
 reject the Messianic interpretation of it. 
 
142 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 But if it can be proved that the visions of 
 Daniel were written in the sixth century 
 B.C., scepticism becomes an impossible atti- 
 tude of mind. Therefore, a propagandism 
 designed to degrade the Bible to the level of 
 a human book found it essential to prove 
 that Daniel was written after the events it 
 professed to predict. 
 
 To attain this end all the great erudition 
 and patient subtlety for which German 
 scholarship is justly famed, were prostituted 
 without reserve ; and the attack of the 
 apostates was an immense advance upon 
 the attack of the Pagan. "Apostates," I 
 say advisedly, for in its origin and purpose 
 the movement was essentially anti-Christian. 
 In course of time, however, men who had no 
 sympathy with the aims of the rationalists 
 were led to adopt their conclusions ; and in 
 our own day the sinister origin of the move- 
 ment is in danger of being forgotten. Its 
 obtaining recruits among English scholars of 
 repute is a matter within living memory. 
 
 First, then, we have the fact that the 
 Book of Daniel, regarded as a classic, is a 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 1 43 
 
 work of the very highest character, and that 
 the attack upon it originated in the exigencies 
 of modern rationaHsm. But secondly, the 
 critics admit, for the fact is indisputable, that 
 the Book of Daniel has entered more closely 
 into the warp and woof of the New Testa- 
 ment than any other portion of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures/ And if they do not admit as 
 unreservedly that it comes to us expressly 
 accredited by our Lord Himself, it is because 
 the " Higher Criticism " is purely destructive, 
 and therefore violates at times the principles 
 on which all true criticism rests.^ But 
 whether they admit it or not, it is none the 
 less certain. And as Keil justly says : " This 
 testimony of our Lord fixes the seal of Divine 
 confirmation on the external and internal 
 evidences which prove the genuineness of 
 the book." 
 
 And in view of these overwhelming proofs 
 of its genuineness, if Hebrew scholars were 
 
 ^ See p. 68 fif., an/e. 
 
 ^ In Matt. xxiv. 15, e.^., there is no question of conflicting 
 MSS. ; the words are admittedly quoted from Daniel, and 
 the passage as a whole unmistakably refers to Daniel (see 
 p. 70, anfe). 
 
144 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 agreed that its language was not that of the 
 sixth century B.C., but of a later time, true 
 criticism would seek for an explanation of 
 that fact. But even those Hebraists who 
 reject the book contradict one another on 
 this very point ; and so Professor Driver falls 
 back on the alleged presence of two Greek 
 words in the text as settling the whole 
 question. But in the circumstances this is 
 but a travesty of true criticism, and proves 
 nothing save the critic's want of practical 
 experience in the art of sifting and weighing 
 evidence.-^ 
 
 The case of the philologist having thus 
 collapsed, the critic still further shakes our 
 confidence in him by turning aside to borrow 
 from the German rationalists a farrago of 
 objections upon minor points. Some of 
 these prove on inquiry to be either sheer 
 blunders^ or mere quibbles,^ and most of 
 them are so petty that no competent tribunal 
 
 1 See pp. 51, 81, ante. 
 
 2 E.g., that Dan. i. i is unhistorical (see App. I., p. 153, 
 post). 
 
 3 E.g.., the spelling of "Nebuchadnezzar" (p. 45 n. ante)., 
 and that Belshazzar is called his son (p. 23, a7itc). 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 1 45 
 
 would listen to them, save in the absence of 
 evidence worthy of the name. 
 
 If any should think that in my reply to 
 Professor Driver I have treated these minor 
 points of criticism too lightly, I would plead 
 the advice once given by a great advocate, 
 always to ignore the petty details of an 
 opponent's evidence if his case can be shat- 
 tered on some vital issue. There is not 
 one of these difficulties and objections to 
 which I have not given full and fair con- 
 sideration, and a reply to them will be found 
 in these pages. '^ But, I repeat, I am pre- 
 pared to stake the whole case for Daniel on 
 the two issues I have specified, namely, the 
 inclusion of the book in the canon, and the 
 fulfilment of its great central vision in Mes- 
 sianic times. 
 
 Behind these is the fact — which in itself 
 ought to satisfy the Christian — that the 
 book bears the express impri'matur of our 
 Divine Lord. And we have the further 
 
 ' To guard myself against any charge on this score, I 
 give a summary of them in the Appendix. See Appendix 
 VII., p. !"](), post. 
 
 K 
 
146 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS DEN 
 
 fact that its visions are inseparably inter- 
 woven with the Christian revelation and 
 with the whole scheme of unfulfilled pro- 
 phecy. But this last topic I do not now 
 discuss. These pages are not addressed 
 to students of prophecy, for no student of 
 prophecy doubts the genuineness of Daniel. 
 But prophecy fulfilled has a voice for every 
 man ; and as Professor Driver's treatise is 
 addressed to men of the world from their 
 own standpoint,^ I have here, waiving the 
 vantage ground of spiritual truth, appealed 
 to the judgment of all fair and reasonable 
 men. 
 
 Ptolemy the astronomer was a "Higher 
 Critic." The belief had long prevailed that 
 
 ^ I do not say this by way of complaint. Regarding the 
 Book of Daniel as no more than a classic, he treats it, of 
 course, on that footing. I recognise the difference between 
 what he has written on this subject and such productions, 
 e.g., as the article in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible., of 
 which he is one of the editors ; or the article in Professor 
 Cheyne's rationalistic Encyclopcedia Biblica. Were Por- 
 phyry the Pagan to come to life again he might without 
 reserve put his name to those articles, and to many another 
 article in both these works. If this is the sort of food sup- 
 plied to divinity students nowadays it is no wonder that so 
 many of them either lapse to rationalism or take refuge in 
 the superstitions of mere religion. 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 1 47 
 
 the sun was the centre of our system ; but 
 he had no difficulty in proving that this tra- 
 ditional belief was untenable. Once he got 
 men to consider the matter from their own 
 standpoint all could see the absurdity of 
 supposing that the earth on which they lived 
 and moved was flying helter-skelter round 
 the sun. And nothing more was needed but 
 to keep the mind occupied with the many 
 apparent difficulties of the hypothesis he 
 opposed, to the exclusion of all thought of 
 the few but insurmountable difficulties of the 
 theory he advocated. The professors and 
 experts were convinced, the multitude fol- 
 lowed suit, and for more than a thousand 
 years the puerilities of the Ptolemaic System 
 held sway, with the sanction of infallible 
 science and the blessing of an infallible 
 Church. 
 
 The allegory is a simple one. There is a 
 " Ptolemaic System " of studying the Bible, 
 which is now struggling for supremacy. 
 Let us, following the rationalists, insist on 
 shutting out God, and dealing with the 
 Bible from the purely human standpoint, 
 
148 DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN 
 
 and then we need but to weary our minds 
 by the consideration of seeming difficulties 
 of one kind, while we ignore overwhelming 
 difficulties of another kind, and the victory 
 of that false system will be assured. For 
 the capacity of fairly considering both sides 
 of a controversy is not common, and the 
 habit of doing so is rare. Therefore it is 
 that the best judge is not the legal expert, 
 but the patient, broad-minded arbitrator, 
 who will calmly hear both sides of a case, and 
 then adjudicate upon it without prejudice 
 or passion. 
 
 This brings me to my closing appeal ; 
 and I address it specially to those who are 
 accustomed to take part in any capacity 
 in the proceedings of our courts of justice. 
 Once again, I ask them to remember that 
 the question here at issue is essentially 
 one for a judicial inquiry, and that if they 
 possess experience of such inquiries their 
 fitness for the task is greater than usually 
 belongs to the professional scholar, how- 
 ever eminent. Philologists of high repute 
 will tell them that the Book of Daniel is 
 
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 1 49 
 
 a forgery. Other philologists of equal fame 
 will assure them that it is genuine. Let 
 them set the opinion of the one set of 
 experts against that of the other; and 
 then, turning to consider the question on 
 broader grounds, let them fearlessly decide it 
 for themselves, uninfluenced by the glamour 
 of great names. 
 
 The religious revolt of the sixteenth 
 century rescued the Bible from the Priest : 
 God grant that the twentieth century may 
 bring a revolt which shall rescue it from 
 the pseudo-critic and the pundit. 
 
APPENDICES 
 
APPENDIX I 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar's first invasion of judea 
 
 The opening statement of the Book of Daniel is 
 here selected for special notice for two reasons. 
 First, because the attack upon it would be serious, 
 if sustained. And secondly and chiefly, because it 
 is a typical specimen of the methods of the critics ; 
 and the inquiry may convince the reader of their 
 unfitness to deal with any question of evidence. I 
 am not here laying down the law, but seeking to 
 afford materials to enable the reader to form his 
 own opinion. Ex uno disce ojnnes. 
 
 Dan. i. i reads : " In the third year of the reign 
 of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar 
 king of Babylon unto Jerusalem and besieged it." 
 The German rationalists denounce this statement 
 as a blunder. Their humble disciples, the English 
 sceptics, accept their conclusion and blindly repro- 
 duce their arguments. Dr. Driver {inore sud) takes a 
 middle course and brands it as " doubtful " {Daniel^ 
 pp. xlviii and 2). I propose to show that the state- 
 ment is historically accurate, and that its accuracy 
 is established by the strict test of chronology.^ 
 
 ^ For a complete and exhaustive analysis of the chrono- 
 logy I would refer to the " Chronological Treatise " in The 
 
 Coming Prince. 
 
 153 
 
154 APPENDIX I 
 
 A reference to Rawlinson's Five Great Monarchies 
 (vol. iii. 488-494), and to Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, 
 will show how thoroughly consistent the sacred 
 history of this period appears to the mind of an 
 historian or a chronologer, and how completely it 
 harmonises with the history of Berosus. Jerusalem 
 was first taken by the Chaldeans in the third year 
 of Jehoiakim. His fourth year was current with 
 the first year of Nebuchadnezzar (Jer, xxv. i). 
 This accords with the statement of Berosus that 
 Nebuchadnezzar's first expedition took place before 
 his actual accession Qose^hus, Apion, i. 19). Then 
 follows the statement quoted at p. 17, ante. But 
 here we must distinguish between the narrative of 
 Josephus, which is full of errors, and his quotation 
 from Berosus, which is consistent and definite. 
 Dr. Driver tells us that on this expedition, when 
 Nebuchadnezzar reached Carchemish, he was con- 
 fronted by the Egyptian army, and defeated it ; and 
 that then, on hearing of his father's death, he 
 hastened home across the desert. That German 
 rationalists should have fallen into such a gro- 
 tesque blunder as this, is proof of the blind 
 malignity of their iconoclastic zeal : that English 
 scholars should adopt it is proof that they have 
 not brought an independent judgment to bear 
 on this controversy. What Berosus says is 
 that when Nebuchadnezzar heard of his father's 
 death, " he set the affairs of Egypt and the other 
 countries in order, and committed the captives he 
 had taken from the fews, and the Phoenicians, and 
 
FIRST INVASION OF JUDEA 1 55 
 
 Syrians, and of the nations belonging to Egypt, 
 to some of his friends . . . while he went in haste 
 over the desert to Babylon." Will the critics tell us 
 how he could have had Jewish captives if he had not 
 invaded Judea ; how he could have reached Egypt 
 without marching through Palestine ; how he could 
 have returned to Babylon over the desert if he had 
 set out from Carchemish on the Euphrates ! 
 
 One error leads to another, and so Dr. Driver 
 has to impugn also the accuracy of Jer. xlvi. 2 
 (which states that the battle of Carchemish was in 
 Jehoiakim's fourth year), and further, to cook the 
 chronology of Jehoiakim's reign by making his 
 regnal years date from Tishri (p. xlix.) — a blunder 
 that the Mishna exposes. (Treatise, Rosh Hasha- 
 nah.) The regnal years of Jewish kings are always 
 reckoned from Nisan. 
 
 According to the Canon of Ptolemy, the reign of 
 Nebuchadnezzar dates from B.C. 604 : i.e. his acces- 
 sion was in the year beginning the ist Thoth (which 
 fell in January), B.C. 604. But the Captivity began 
 in Nebuchadnezzar's eighth year {cf. Ezek. i. 2, 
 and 2 Kings xxiv. 12); and in the thirty-seventh 
 year of the Captivity Nebuchadnezzar's successor 
 was on the throne (2 Kings xxv. 27). This, how- 
 ever, gives Nebuchadnezzar a reign of at least 
 forty-four years, whereas according to the canon 
 (and Berosus confirms it) he reigned only forty- 
 three years. It follows, therefore, that Scripture 
 antedates his reign and computes it from B.C. 605. 
 (Chnton, F. H., vol. i. p. 367,) This might be ex- 
 
156 APPENDIX I 
 
 plained by the fact that the Jews acknowledged him 
 as suzerain from that date. But it has been over- 
 looked that it is accounted for by the Mishna rule of 
 computing regnal years from Nisan to Nisan. In 
 B.C. 604, the first Nisan fell on the ist April, and 
 according to the Mishna rule the king's second 
 year would begin on that day, no matter how 
 recently he had ascended the throne. Therefore 
 the fourth year of Jehoiakim and the first year of 
 Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxv. i) was the year begin- 
 ning Nisan B.C. 605 ; and the third year of Jehoiakim, 
 in which Jerusalem was taken and the Servitude 
 began, was the year beginning Nisan B.C. 606. 
 
 This result is confirmed by Clinton, who fixes the 
 summer of B.C. 606 as the date of Nebuchadnezzar's 
 first expedition. And it is strikingly confirmed also 
 by a statement in Daniel which is the basis of one 
 of the quibbles of the critics : Daniel was kept three 
 years in training before he was admitted to the 
 king's presence, and yet he interpreted the king's 
 dream in his second year (Dan. i. 5, 18; ii. i). 
 The explanation is simple. While the Jews in 
 Palestine computed Nebuchadnezzar's reign in their 
 own way, Daniel, a citizen of Babylon and a courtier, 
 of course accepted the reckoning in use around him. 
 But as the prophet was exiled in B.C. 606, his three 
 years' probation ended in B.C. 603, whereas the 
 second year of Nebuchadnezzar, reckoned from his 
 actual accession, extended to the early months of 
 B.C. 602. 
 
 Again : the accession of Evil-Merodach was in 
 
FIRST INVASION OF JUDEA 1 57 
 
 B.C. 561, and the thirty-seventh year of the Capti- 
 vity was then current (2 Kings xxv. 27). There- ' 
 fore the Captivity dated from the year Nisan 598 
 to Nisan 597. But this was (according to Jewish 
 reckoning) the eighth year of Nebuchadnezzar (2 
 Kings xxiv. 12). His reign, therefore, dated from 
 the year Nisan 605 to Nisan 604. And the first 
 siege of Jerusalem and the beginning of the Servi- 
 tude was in the preceding year, 606-605. 
 
 But seventy years was the appointed duration 
 of the Servitude {riot the Captivity, see p. 21, 
 ante). And the Servitude ended in the first year of 
 Cyrus, B.C. 536. It nmst therefore have begun in 
 B.C. 606 (the third year of Jehoiakim), as the Book 
 of Daniel records. 
 
 That date, therefore, is the pivot on which the 
 whole chronology turns. On what ground then 
 does Dr. Driver impugn it ? Will it be believed 
 that the only ground suggested is that 2 Kings 
 xxiv. I, which so definitely confirms Daniel, does 
 not specify the particular year intended, and that 
 Jeremiah xxv. and xxxvi. are silent with regard to 
 the invasion of that year. 
 
 Let me examine this. I open Jer. xxv. to 
 find these words : " The word that came to 
 Jeremiah ... in the fourth year of Jehoiakim . . . 
 that was the first year of Nebuchadrezzar, king of 
 Babylonr Now Jeremiah had been a prophet for 
 more than twenty years, yet till the fourth year of 
 Jehoiakim he never mentions Nebuchadnezzar ; but 
 in that year he fixes a date by reference to his reign. 
 
158 APPENDIX I 
 
 How is this to be explained ? The explanation is 
 obvious, namely that by the capture of Jerusalem, 
 the year before, as recorded in Dan. i. i, and 2 
 Chron. xxxvi. 6, 7, Nebuchadnezzar had become 
 suzerain. And yet Professor Driver tells us that 
 " the invasion of Judea by Nebuchadnezzar, and the 
 three years' submission of Jehoiakim, are certainly 
 to be placed after Jehoiakim's fourth year — most 
 probably indeed, tov^ards the close of his reign " 
 {Daniel, p. 2). 
 
 I now turn to Jer. xxxvi. This chapter records 
 prophecies of the fourth and fifth year of Jehoiakim 
 (vers. I and 9), and it is true that they do not mention 
 an invasion before these years. But the critic has 
 overlooked chapter xxxv. This chapter belongs to 
 the same group as the chapter which follows it, and 
 should of course be assigned to a date not later 
 than the fourth year of the king. And in this 
 chapter (verse 11) the presence of the Rechabites in 
 Jerusalem is accounted for by the fact that Nebu- 
 chadnezzar's invasion had driven them from their 
 homes. This chapter also thus affords signal con- 
 firmation of Daniel. The critics therefore hold, of 
 course, that it belongs to the close of Jehoiakim's 
 reign. And if we ask. Why should the history be 
 turned upside down in this way ? they answer. 
 Because the prophecies of the earlier years of 
 his reign are silent as to this invasion ! This 
 is a typical illustration of their logic and their 
 methods. 
 
 I will only add that the silence of a witness is a 
 
FIRST INVASION OF JUDEA 1 59 
 
 familiar problem with the man of affairs, who will 
 sometimes account for it in a manner that may seem 
 strange to the student at his desk. It may be 
 due, not to ignorance of the event in question, 
 but to the fact that that event was prominently 
 present to the minds of all concerned. 
 
APPENDIX II 
 
 THE DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR 
 
 The following is Professor Sayce's rendering of 
 the concluding (decipherable) portion of the An- 
 nalistic tablet of Cyrus : — 
 
 " On the fourteenth day of the month Sippara 
 was taken without fighting; Nabonidos fled. On 
 the sixteenth day Gobryas (Ugbaru), the Gover- 
 nor of the countr}^ of Kurdistan (Gutium), and the 
 soldiers of Cyrus, entered Babylon without fighting. 
 Afterwards Nabonidos was captured, after being 
 bound in Babylon. At the end of the month 
 Tammuz the javelin-throwers of the country of 
 Kurdistan guarded the gates of E-Saggil ; no ces- 
 sation of services took place in E-Saggil and the 
 other temples, but no special festival was observed. 
 The third day of the month Marchesvan (October) 
 Cyrus entered Babylon. Dissensions were allayed 
 before him. Peace to the city did Cyrus establish, 
 peace to all the province of Babylon did Gobryas 
 his governor proclaim. Governors in Babylon he 
 appointed. From the month Chisleu to the month 
 Adar (November to February) the gods of the 
 country of Accad, whom Nabonidos had trans- 
 ferred to Babylon, returned to their own cities. 
 The eleventh day of the month Marchesvan, during 
 
 the night, Gobryas was on the bank of the river. 
 
 1 60 
 
THE DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR l6l 
 
 . . . The wife of the king died. From the twenty- 
 seventh day of Adar to the third day of Nisan 
 there was lamentation in the country of Accad ; 
 all the people smote their heads. On the fourth 
 day Kambyses the son of Cyrus conducted the 
 burial at the temple of the Sceptre of the world. 
 The priest of the temple of the Sceptre of Nebo, 
 who upbears the sceptre [of Nebo in the temple 
 of the god], in an Elamite robe took the hands 
 of Nebo, . . , the son of the king (Kambyses) 
 [offered] free-will offerings in full to ten times 
 [the usual amount]. He confined to E-Saggil 
 the [image] of Nebo. Victims before Bel to ten 
 times [the usual amount he sacrificed]." 
 
 The reader's surprise will naturally be excited on 
 learning that the tablet is so mutilated and defective 
 that the text has here and there to be reconstructed, 
 and that the above, while purporting to be merely 
 a translation is, in fact, also a reconstruction. I 
 will here confine myself, however, to one point 
 of principal importance. Mr. Theo. G. Pinches, 
 by whom this very tablet was first brought 
 to light, is perfectly clear that the reading " the 
 wife of the king died " cannot be sustained. He 
 writes as follows ^ (I omit the cuneiform charac- 
 ters) : — 
 
 " Professor Sayce has adopted a suggestion of 
 Professor Schrader. The characters cannot be . . . 
 
 * I wish to acknowledge my obligation to the Rev. John 
 Urquhart, the author of TJie Inspiration and Accuracy of 
 the Holy Scriptures, for placing this letter at my disposal. 
 
 L 
 
1 62 APPENDIX II 
 
 ' and the wife of,' but must be either ... * and ' (as 
 I read it at first) or ... * and the son of.' This 
 last improved reading I suggested about four years 
 ago, and the Rev. C. J. Ball and Dr. Hagen, who 
 examined the text with me, adopted this view. Dr. 
 Hagen wrote upon the subject in Delitzsch's Beit- 
 rage, vol. i. Of course, whether we read ' and the 
 king died,' or * and the son of the king died,' it 
 comes to the same thing, as either expression could 
 refer to Belshazzar, who, after his father's flight, 
 would naturally be at the head of affairs." 
 
 The following extract is from Mr. Pinches's article 
 " Belshazzar " in the new edition of Smith's Bible 
 Dictionary : — 
 
 " As is well known, Belshazzar was, according to 
 Daniel v., killed in the night, and Xenophon {Cyrop., 
 vii. 5, 3) tells us that Babylon was taken by Cyrus 
 during the night, whilst the inhabitants were en- 
 gaged in feasting and revelry, and that the king was 
 killed. So in the Babylonian Chronicle, lines 22-24, 
 we have the statement that * On the night of the 
 II th of Marchesvan, Ugbaru (Gobryas) [descended?] 
 against [Babylon ?] and the king died. From the 
 27th of Adar until the 3rd of Nisan there was weep- 
 ing in Akkad. All the people bowed their head.' 
 The most doubtful character in the above extract is 
 that which stands for the word ' and,' the character 
 in question having been regarded as the large group 
 which stands for that word. A close examination of 
 the original, however, shows that it is possible that 
 there are two characters instead of one — namely, the 
 j;«(a:// character for 'and,' and the character tur, which 
 in this connection would stand for u mar, ' and the 
 son of/ in which case the line would read, * and the 
 
THE DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR 1 63 
 
 son of the king died.' Weeping in Akkad for Bel- 
 shazzar is just what would be expected, when we 
 take into consideration that he was for many years 
 with the army there, and that he must have made 
 himself a favourite by his liberality to the Akkadian 
 temples. Even supposing, however, that the old 
 reading is the right one, it is nevertheless possible 
 that the passage refers to Belshazzar ; for Berosus 
 relates that Nabonidos, on surrendering to Cyrus, 
 had his life spared, and that a principality or estate 
 was given to him in Carmania, where he died. It 
 is therefore at least probable that Belshazzar was 
 regarded even by the Babylonians as king, especi- 
 ally after his father's surrender. With this improved 
 reading of the Babylonian text, it is impossible to do 
 otherwise than identify Gobry as with Darius the Mede 
 (if we suppose that the last verse of the 5 th chapter 
 of Daniel really belongs to that chapter, and does 
 not form part, as in the Hebrew text, of chap, vi.), 
 he being mentioned, in the Babylonian Chronicle, in 
 direct connection with the death of the king's son 
 (or the king, as the case may be). This identifica- 
 tion, though not without its difficulties, receives a 
 certain amount of support from Daniel vi. i, where 
 it is stated that * it pleased Darius to set over the 
 kingdom an hundred and twenty princes,' &c. — an 
 act which finds parallel in the Babylonian Chronicle, 
 which states that, after Cyrus promised peace to 
 Babylon, Gobryas, his governor, appointed gover- 
 nors in Babylon.' " 
 
 On this same subject I am indebted to Mr. St. 
 Chad Boscawen for the following note : — 
 
 " Owing to the mutilated state of the latter part 
 of the tablet, it is extremely difficult to arrange the 
 
164 APPENDIX II 
 
 events, and also in some cases to clearly understand 
 the exact meanings of the sentences. As far as I 
 can see, the course of events seems to have been as 
 follows. Sippara was taken on the 14th of Tam- 
 muz, and two days later Babylon. Nabonidos had 
 fled, but he was still recognised as king by the 
 majority of the people, especially by rich trading 
 communities such as the Egibi firm, who continued 
 to date their contracts in his regnal years. At 
 Sippara the people seem to have recognised Cyrus 
 as king earlier than at Babylon, as the tablets of 
 his accession year are all, with one exception, the 
 source of which is not known, from Sippara. On 
 the 3rd of Marchesvan Cyrus entered Babylon and 
 appointed Gobryas (the prefect of Gutium) ' prefect 
 of the prefects ' {pikhat-pikhate) of Babylon ; and 
 he (Gobryas) appointed the ol/ier pi^efects. That 
 reading of the sentence is perfectly legitimate. 
 Cyrus seems only to have occupied himself with 
 the restoration of religious order, and on restoring 
 the gods to their temples who had been transported 
 to Babylon. We have then a remarkable passage. 
 Sayce reads ' the wife of the king died ' ; but Hagen 
 reads the son of the king, and I have examined this 
 tablet, and find that although the tablet is here 
 broken, the most probable reading is . . . the son, 
 not the wife . . . 
 
 " In Dan. v. we read, and ' Darius the Median 
 took the kingdom, being about threescore and two 
 years.' In a second passage, however, this is modi- 
 fied. We read, * In the first year of Darius, the 
 son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which 
 was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans' 
 (ix. i); and again, 'It pleased Darius to set over 
 the kingdom a hundred and twenty princes' (vi. i). 
 Here we have an exact parallel to the case of Gob- 
 
THE DEATH OF BELSHAZZAR 1 65 
 
 ryas. Gobryas was a Manda — among whom were 
 embraced the Medes, for Astyages, an undoubted 
 Median king, ruler of the Median capital of Ecbatana, 
 is called ... a soldier of the Manda, or barbarians. 
 He is appointed on the 3rd Marchesvan B.C. 538 — 
 after taking the kingdom on i6th Tammuz — 'prefect 
 of the prefects ' ; and he appoints other prefects over 
 the kingdom. His reign did not last more than one 
 year, terminating in either Adar 538 or early in B.C. 
 537. The end is rendered obscure by the fractures 
 in the tablet. . . . 
 
 " If, then, Gubaru or Gobryas was prefect of 
 Gutium before his conquest of Babylon in B.C. 538, 
 there is nothing whatever against his being a Mede ; 
 and as Astyages was deposed by a revolt, when ' he 
 was taken by the hands of the rebels and given to 
 Cyrus ' {Chronicle Inscr.), it is very probable that 
 Gobryas was the leader of the conspiracy. Indeed 
 he seems to me to fulfil in every way the required 
 conditions to be Darius the Mede. . . . The appoint- 
 ment of the satraps does not seem exorbitantly large, 
 nor are these to be confounded with the satrapies of 
 the Persian empire." 
 
 And finally, in his Book of Daniel (p. xxx) Pro- 
 fessor Driver, in citing the foregoing extract from 
 the tablet, reads the crucial sentence thus : — " On 
 the nth day of Marchesvan, during the night, 
 Gubaru made an assault and slew the king's son." 
 And at pp. 60, 61 he writes: "After Gubaru and 
 Cyrus had entered Babylon ... he (Belshazzar) is 
 said (according to the most probable reading) to 
 have been slain by Gubaru 'during the night,' i.e. 
 (apparently) in some assault made by night upon 
 the fortress or palace to which he had withdrawn." 
 
1 66 APPENDIX II 
 
 I will only add that, in view of the testimony of 
 these witnesses, so thoroughly competent and im- 
 partial, it is not easy to restrain a feeling of indigna- 
 tion at the effrontery (not to use a stronger word) 
 of Professor Sayce's language in pp. 525, 526 of his 
 book. 
 
APPENDIX III 
 
 THE PUNCTUATION OF DANIEL IX. 2$ 
 
 The Massoretic punctuation of Daniel ix. 25 has 
 
 been adopted by Dean Farrar and Professor Driver, 
 
 who fail to see that it is fatal to their pseud-epigraph 
 
 theory of Daniel. The passage when thus read 
 
 limits to 62 " weeks " the period during which 
 
 Jerusalem was to remain as an inhabited city; and 
 
 it is quite certain that no Jew writing " in the days 
 
 of the Seleucid tyrant, anxious to inspire the courage 
 
 and console the sufferings of his countrymen," 
 
 would have used words which could only mean 
 
 that the destruction of their holy city was imminent. 
 
 Assuming the genuineness of the Book of Daniel, 
 
 the R.V. punctuation renders the meaning of the 
 
 passage more obscure, but it cannot alter it ; for 
 
 as 74-62+1 make up 70, it is obvious that the 
 
 lesser periods mentioned are subdivisions of the 
 
 70 weeks of the prophecy. It is clear, therefore, 
 
 that the 62 weeks follow the 7 weeks, and that the 
 
 death of Messiah (according to verse 26) was to be 
 
 at the close of the 69th week. 
 
 " The sacred writings — Torah, Prophets, and 
 
 Hagiographa — were written in archaic style, the 
 
 167 
 
I 68 APPENDIX III 
 
 letters were unaccompanied by vowel or punctua- 
 tion signs. . . . The accents and the vowel system 
 are an integral part of the Massorah."^ And 
 further, " The Received, or, as it is commonly 
 called, the Massoretic text of the Old Testament 
 Scriptures, has come down to us in manuscripts 
 which are of no very great antiquity, and which 
 all belong to the same family or recension " (Pre- 
 face, R.V.). As the words " of no very great 
 antiquity " may be explained to mean not more 
 than about one thousand years old, the reader 
 can appreciate Professor Margoliouth's statement 
 "that we possess the Old Testament in a partially 
 anti-Christian recension." ^ And as a false punctua- 
 tion of Dan. ix. 25 would suffice to obscure, though 
 it could not destroy, the Messianic reference of the 
 passage, the Jewish editors may have possibly 
 sought in this way to lessen the weight of 
 proof which Daniel affords of the truth of Chris- 
 tian it3^ 
 
 But we may clear the Jewish editors from this 
 charge, though at the expense of the Old Testament 
 Compan}^ of Revisers. Punctuation marks (as we 
 understand the term) there are none in Hebrew. 
 But the Hebrew accents serve to a certain extent the 
 same purpose. The following extract from the 
 Gesenius-Kautzsch Hebrew Grammar'^ (than which 
 
 1 The Hebrew Accents^ by Arthur Davis. (Myers & Co., 
 1 900.) 
 
 2 Lines of Defence^ p. 242. 
 
 3 Clarendon Press, 1898 (p. 56). 
 
THE PUNCTUATION OF DANIEL 1 69 
 
 there is no higher authority) will enable the reader 
 to judge of this matter for himself: — 
 
 "The design of the accents \^ primarily to regu- 
 late the musical enunciation (chanting) of the sacred 
 Text ; and thus they are first of all a kind of musi- 
 cal notes. . . . On the other hand, according to 
 their original design they have also a twofold use 
 which is still of the greatest importance for the 
 grammar — viz., their value (a) as marking the tone ; 
 (b) as marks of punctuation^^ And to this a foot- 
 note is added to explain " that the value of the 
 accent as a mark of punctuation is always relative. 
 Thus, e.g., 'Athnah, as regards the logical struc- 
 ture of the sentence, may at one time indicate a very 
 strong caesure (thus Gen. i. 4) ; at another, one 
 which is almost imperceptible (thus Gen. i. l)." 
 
 Now it is the presence of the Athnah accent 
 which has led' the Revisers to divide Dan. ix. 25 
 by a colon. On the same principle and for the 
 same reason they ought to have rendered Gen. i. i, 
 " In the beginning God created : the heaven and 
 the earth." In the Hebrew the order of the words 
 is, " In the beginning created God ; " and the force 
 of the Athnah is to make the reader pause at the 
 sacred name in order that the hearers may grasp 
 the solemn meaning of the words. In every case, 
 therefore, the context must decide whether the 
 accent should be " translated " by the insertion of a 
 colon in the English version. The Revisers, how- 
 ever, by a majority vote, and in spite of the protest 
 of the American Company, have thus corrupted 
 Dan. ix. 25. It is one of the blemishes of the 
 
170 APPENDIX III 
 
 R.V. of the Old Testament, which is generally free 
 from these " schoolboy translations," ^ that so often 
 mark the R.V. of the New Testament. I will con- 
 clude by repeating that if their punctuation here is 
 right, it is proof that Daniel was not written in the 
 Maccabean era. 
 
 Since writing the foregoing my attention has 
 been called to the presence of the Athnah in verse 
 2 of this very chapter. If the critics are right they 
 ought to render it, " I, Daniel, understood by the 
 books: the number of the years, &c." But their 
 position is in fact utterly untenable. 
 
 * Eccles. xii. 5 is a notable instance of this. The beauti- 
 fully veiled reference implied in the caper-berry is rendered 
 with exquisite propriety in our A.V., "and desire shall fail." 
 The R.V. reading, " and the caper-berry shall fail," is a 
 mere schoolboy translation, and absolutely meaningless to 
 the English reader. 
 
APPENDIX IV 
 
 THE JEWISH CALENDAR 
 
 According to th&Mishna (treatise Rosh Hashanali)^ 
 " On the 1st of Nisan is a new year for the com- 
 putation of the reign of kings and for festivals." 
 To which the Jewish editors of the Engh'sh trans- 
 lation of the Mishna add this note: "The reign of 
 Jewish kings, whatever the period of accession might 
 be, was always reckoned from the preceding Nisan ; 
 so that if, for instance, a Jewish king began to reign 
 in Adar, the following month (Nisan) would be 
 considered as the commencement of the second 
 year of his reign. This rule was observed in all 
 legal contracts, in which the reign of kings was 
 always mentioned." This rule, I may add, will 
 explain what Christian expositors and critics are 
 pleased to call the "errors" in the chronological 
 statements of Scripture as to Jewish regnal years. 
 
 Full information on the subject of the present 
 Jewish year will be found in Lindo's Jewish 
 Calendar, and in the Encyc. Brit., 9th ed., article 
 " Hebrew Calendar." But while their calendar is 
 now settled with astronomical accuracy, it was not 
 
 so in early times. And nothing is certainly known 
 
 171 
 
172 APPENDIX IV 
 
 of the embolismal system then in use, to adjust the 
 lunar to the solar year. But the testimony of the 
 Mishna is definite that the great characteristic of 
 the sacred year, as ordained in the Mosaic age, 
 remained unchanged in Messianic times; namely, 
 it began with the first appearance of the Paschal 
 moon. The Mishna states that the Sanhedrim re- 
 quired the evidence of two competent witnesses 
 that they had seen the new moon. The rules for 
 the journey and examination of the witnesses con- 
 template the case of their coming from a distance, 
 and being "a night and a day on the road." The 
 proclamation by the Sanhedrim may therefore have 
 been delayed for a day or two after the phasis, and 
 the phasis may sometimes have been delayed till 
 the moon was l d. 17 h. old. So that the 1st Nisan 
 may sometimes have fallen several days later than 
 the true new moon. (See Clinton, asti Roiu., 
 vol. ii. p. 240.) 
 
 All writers therefore who, e.g.^ fix the date of the 
 Crucifixion by assigning it to a year in which the 
 Paschal full moon was on a Friday, are clearly 
 wrong. The elements of doubt are: (i) The time 
 of the phasis ; (2) the appearance of the necessary 
 witnesses ; (3) the rules to prevent the festivals 
 falling on unsuitable days ; and (4) the embolismal 
 system in force, of which we know nothing certainly. 
 The use of the Metonic cycle in settling the Jewish 
 calendar dates only from the fourth century A.D. ; 
 and as the old eight years' cycle was in use 
 among the early Christians for settling Easter, 
 
THE JEWISH CALENDAR I 73 
 
 the presumption is that it was borrowed from 
 the Jews. 
 
 Let me illustrate this by A.D. 32, the year which 
 Scripture itself marks out as the year of the Cruci- 
 fixion. The true new moon was late on the night 
 (lOh, 57m.) of the 29th March. The proclamation 
 of the Sanhedrim therefore would naturally have 
 occurred on the 31st. But, as above explained, it 
 may have been delayed till 1st April; and in that 
 case the 15 th Nisan should have fallen on Tuesday 
 the 15 th April. But according to the scheme of the 
 eight years' cycle, the embolismal month was inserted 
 in the 3rd, 6th, and 8th years ; and an examination 
 of the calendars from A.D. 22 to 45 will show that 
 A.D. 32 was the 3rd year of such a cycle. And as 
 the difference between the solar year and the lunar 
 is 11^ days, it would amount in three years to 33! 
 days, and the addition of a 13th month {Ve-Adar) 
 of 30 days would leave an epoch still remaining of 
 3I days. And the " ecclesiastical moon " being 
 that much before the real moon, the Passover 
 festival would have fallen on Friday (i ith April). I 
 have dealt with this question at greater length in 
 The Coming Prince, pp. 99-105. 
 
APPENDIX V 
 
 THE TWENTIETH YEAR OF ARTAXERXES 
 
 The month Nisaii in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes 
 is the epoch of the prophetic era of the seventy weeks. 
 In deahng with this subject, therefore, it is of vital 
 importance to fix that date, and I have dealt with 
 the matter exhaustively in an Excursus (App. II., 
 Note A) added to The Coining Prince, to which I 
 beg leave to refer the reader. I will here give but 
 one extract : — 
 
 "According to Clinton {F. //., vol. ii. p. 380), the 
 death of Xerxes was in July, B.C. 465, and the 
 accession of Artaxerxes was in February, B.C. 464. 
 Artaxerxes, of course, ignored the usurper's reign, 
 which intervened, and reckoned his own reign from 
 the day of his father's death. Again, of course, 
 Nehemiah, being an officer of the court, followed the 
 same reckoning. Had he computed his master's 
 reign from February 464, Chislen and Nisan could 
 not have fallen in the same regnal year (Neh. i. i ; 
 ii. i). No more could they, had he, according to 
 Jewish practice, computed it from Nisan." 
 
 Not content, however, with my own investigations, 
 I appealed to the author of The Five Great Mon- 
 archies, and Canon Rawlinson favoured me with 
 
 174 
 
TWENTIETH YEAR OF ARTAXERXES 1 75 
 
 the following reply : '* You may safely say that 
 chronologers are now agreed that Xerxes died in 
 the year B.C. 465. The Canon of Ptolemy, Thuci- 
 dides, Diodorus, and Manetho are agreed, the only 
 counter authority being Ctesias, who is quite un- 
 trustworthy." 
 
 Then as regards the Julian date of the ist Nisan, 
 B.C. 445 (Neh. ii.), when my book was in the press, 
 I began to fear lest my own lunar calculations to 
 fix the Jewish New Year (see Appendix IV., ante)^ 
 might prove untrustworthy, and accordingly I wrote 
 to the then Astronomer-Royal, Sir George Airy, 
 who replied as follows : " I have had the moon's 
 place calculated from Largeteau's Tables in additions 
 to the Connaisancc des Temps, 1 846, by one of my 
 assistants, and have no doubt of its correctness. 
 The place being calculated for — 444, March 12 d. 
 20 h., French reckoning, or March 12 d. 8 h. P.M., 
 it appears that the said time was short of New 
 Moon by about 8 h. 47 m., and therefore the New 
 Moon occurred at 4 h. 47 m. A.M., March 13th, 
 Paris time." 
 
 The New Moon, therefore, occurred at Jerusalem 
 on the 13th March, B.C. 445 ( — 444 Astronomical) 
 at 7 h. 9 m. A.M. And the next day, the 14th, was 
 the 1st Nisan. 
 
APPENDIX VI 
 
 THE DATE OF THE CRUCIFIXION 
 
 As regards the date of the Ministry and of the 
 Passion, Luke iii. i is an end of controversy with 
 all who reject the nightmare system of interpreting 
 Scripture. The 15th year of the Emperor Tiberius 
 is as certain a date as the 15th year of Queen 
 Victoria. He began to reign on the 19th August 
 A.D, 14. "And no single case has ever been, or 
 can be, produced in which the years of Tiberius 
 were reckoned in any other manner." 
 
 But Gibbon tells us that " The Roman Emperors 
 . . . invested their designed successor with so large 
 a share of present power as should enable him, after 
 their decease, to assume the remainder without suf- 
 fering the empire to perceive the change of masters. 
 Thus Augustus . . . obtained for his adopted son 
 [Tiberius] the censorial and tribunitian power, 
 and dictated a law by which the future prince 
 was invested with an authority equal to his own 
 over the provinces and the armies. Thus Ves- 
 pasian . . . associated Titus to the full powers of 
 the Imperial dignity " {Decline and Fall, I. ch. 3). 
 
 And this is made an excuse for "cooking" the 
 
 chronology by those who, in spite of the clear 
 
 176 
 
THE DATE OF THE CRUCIFIXION 1 77 
 
 testimony of Scripture, insist on assigning the 
 Crucifixion to A.D. 29 or 30. They treat the reign 
 of Tiberius as beginning some years before the 
 death of Augustus, and take his 15 th year to mean 
 his 1 2th year. Sanclementi, indeed, finding "that 
 nowhere in his tim.e, or on monuments or coins, is 
 a vestige to be found of any such mode of reckoning 
 the years of this emperor," disposes of the difficulty 
 by taking the date in Luke iii. i to refer to the 
 Passion ! Browne adopts this in a modified form. 
 He says " it is improbable to the last degree " 
 that Luke, who wrote specially for a Roman officer, 
 and generally for Gentiles, would have so expressed 
 himself as to be certainly misunderstood by them. 
 Therefore, though the statement of the Evangelist 
 clashes with his date for the Passion, he owns his 
 obligation to accept it. (See Ordo Scec, §§ 71 
 and 75.) 
 
 The Evangelist's chronology refutes the tradi- 
 tional date embodied in the spurious Acta Pilati 
 formerly quoted in this controversy, and in the 
 writings of certain of the Fathers — "by some 
 because they confounded the date of the baptism 
 with the date of the Passion; by others, because 
 they supposed both to have happened in one year ; 
 by others, because they transcribed from their 
 predecessors without examination" (Fynes Clinton, 
 Fasti Rom., A.D. 29), 
 
 The advocates of this false chronology rely, first, 
 on a wrong inference from the Evangelist's state- 
 ment that the Lord "when He began (to teach) 
 
 M 
 
178 APPENDIX VI 
 
 was about thirty years of age " (Luke iii. 23). But, 
 as Alford says, this " admits of considerable lati- 
 tude, but only in one direction^ viz. over thirty years." 
 And, secondly, on the figment that the Passion must 
 have occurred in a year when the Paschal moon 
 was full upon a Friday. But this is a blunder. 
 John xviii. 3 makes it clear that the Passover of the 
 Crucifixion was not at the full moon. For in that 
 case there would have been no " lanterns and 
 torches," especially having regard to Luke xxii. 2. 
 See Appendix IV. (p. 172/". ante)\ and also CHnton's 
 Fasti Rom. ^ vol. ii. p. 240, as to the impossibility 
 of determining in what year the Passover fell on a 
 Friday. The whole question is dealt with fully in 
 The Coming Prince^ ch. viii. 
 
APPENDIX VII 
 
 PROFESSOR driver's INDICTMENT OF DANIEL 
 
 The following is a brief summary of Professor 
 Driver's indictment of the Book of Daniel. 
 
 He enumerates under nine heads " facts of a 
 historical nature " which point to an author later 
 than Daniel (pp. xlvii-lvi). These are : — 
 
 1. The position of the Book in the Jewish Canon. 
 (As to this see pp. 57-61, and 103-108, ante.) 
 
 2. The omission of his name from Ecclesiasticus. 
 (See pp. 57, 98 n., ante.) 
 
 3. That the Book of Kings is silent as to the 
 siege mentioned in Dan. i. i. (Seep. 15 and App. I., 
 ante.) 
 
 4. The use of the term " Chaldean." (See p. 45 n., 
 ante.) 
 
 5. That Belshazzar is spoken of as king, and as 
 son of Nebuchadnezzar. (See p. 23^., ante.) 
 
 6. The mention of Darius the Mede as King of 
 Babylon. (See p. 31^. and 165, ante.) 
 
 7. The mention of " the books " in Dan. ix. 2. 
 The word sepher means simply a scroll. It often 
 denotes a book ; often a letter (as, e.g.^ Jer. xxix. i, 
 or Isa. xxxvii. 14.) Then again Jer, xxxvi. i, 2 
 
 records that Jeremiah's prophecies up to that time 
 
 179 
 
l8o APPENDIX VII 
 
 were recorded in a " book." And ten years later 
 a further "book" of them was sent to Babylon 
 (Jer. li. 60, 61). Or if any one insists that "the 
 books " must here mean a recognised canon, where 
 is the difficulty ? The statement that no such 
 "collection" existed in B.C. 536 is one of those 
 wanton assertions that abound in this controversy. 
 It may " safely be affirmed " with certainty that the 
 scrolls of the Law were kept together. And there 
 was no man on earth more likely to possess them 
 than the great prophet-prince of the Captivity. 
 
 8. " The incorrect explanation of the name Belte- 
 shazzar in iv. 8." (As Dr. Driver goes on to de- 
 scribe this as " doubtful " (p. liv.), I have not deemed 
 it necessary to notice it.) 
 
 9. The "improbability" that strict Jews would 
 have accepted a position among the " wise men " 
 (see p. 13, ante), and other like "improbabilities." 
 (As Dr. Driver goes on to admit that these do not 
 possess weight, and " should be used with reserve," 
 I have not dwelt upon them.) 
 
 His second ground of attack is the language of 
 the book (Ivi.-lxiii.). This has been fully discussed 
 in these pages (ch. iv.). 
 
 And the third ground is " the theology of the 
 book." After deprecating the " exaggerations of 
 the rationalists " under this head, he proceeds : — 
 " It is undeniable that the conception of the future 
 Kingdom of God, and the doctrines of angels, of the 
 resurrection, and of a judgment on the world, appear 
 in Daniel in a more developed form than elsewhere 
 
PROFESSOR driver's INDICTMENT l8l 
 
 in the Old Testament." Far be it from me to deny 
 it ! It is largely on this very account that the 
 Christian values the book, remembering as he does, 
 what Professor Driver ignores, that its teaching in 
 all these respects is definitely adopted and developed 
 in the New Testament. And if he finds that the 
 later Jewish apocalyptical hterature resembles the 
 book in some respects, he has no difficulty in 
 accounting for the resemblance. (See p. 57, ante.) 
 I make the critic a present of the entire argument 
 under this head of " the theology of the book," save 
 on three points. And they are points which would 
 never have been urged by an English Christian 
 writer save under the influence of German infidelity. 
 
 1. It is not true that the interest of the book cul- 
 minates in the history of Antiochus. As all Christian 
 expositors with united voice maintain, it culminates 
 in the prophecy of Messiah's advent and death. 
 And as all students of prophecy recognise, it reaches 
 on to the time of the great Antichrist of whom 
 Antiochus was but a type. 
 
 2. Daniel's passionatel}' earnest prayer recorded 
 in ch. ix. is a complete answer to the statement that 
 he took " little interest in the welfare and prospects 
 of his contemporaries." 
 
 3. We are told that " the minuteness of the predic- 
 tions embracing even special events in the distant 
 future, is also out of harmony with the analogy of 
 prophecy." If this were sustained it would not affect 
 the book as a whole, but serve merely to accredit the 
 suggestion urged by some writers that part of chap. xi. 
 
I 82 APPENDIX VII 
 
 is an interpolation. But in view of the facts this alle- 
 gation is as strange as that under (2) supra, and as 
 many others in Professor Driver's book. What 
 about the minute predictions scattered through the 
 Old Testament respecting the Nativity and the 
 Passion ? And the last eight chapters of Ezekiel 
 contain a mass of predictions which still ajvait 
 fulfilment, as minute as anything in Daniel. 
 
 This is all that the Higher Criticism has to urge 
 against the Book of Daniel. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accents, the Hebrew, 169 
 Adler, Dr., Chief Rabbi, 26 «. 
 Airy, Sir George, 175 
 " Annalistic Tablet," the, 27, 
 
 29) 32, 37 n., 160-166 
 Antiochus Epiphanes, 12, 14, 
 
 96 
 Apocryphal literature of the 
 
 Jews, 57 
 Aramaic of Daniel, the, 42, 
 
 43 
 Artaxerxes I., 85, 87, 89, 126, 
 127, 174 
 
 Behrmann, 25 
 
 Belshazzar, King, 12, 23, 24, 
 
 29, 3o> 179 
 death of, 32, 33, 34, 
 
 35, 160-166 
 Ben-Sira, 52-55, 57, 98 «., 
 
 100-102 
 Berosus, 17, 19, 40, 154, 163 
 Bevan, Professor, 69, 88 n. 
 " Books " the (Dan. ix. 2), 1 79 
 Borsippa, 24 
 
 Boscawen, Mr. St. Chad, 163 
 Buddhism, 46 n. 
 
 Calendar, the Jewish, 171- 
 
 Cambyses, 32 
 
 Canon, testimony of, to 
 
 Daniel, 99-1 11, 179 
 " Caper-berry," the, 170 n. 
 Captivity, the, 21, 113, 157 
 Carchemish, 16, 17, 94 n., 
 
 154, 155 
 
 '' Chaldeans" = wise men, 
 
 45 n., 17c) 
 Cheyne, Professor, 42 «., 50, 
 
 76 n. 
 Chronological difficulties, 
 
 82-91, 120 ft. 
 Clinton, Fynes, 120 «., 154, 
 
 155, 156, 172, 174, 177, 
 178 
 
 Crucifixion, the. See " Pas- 
 sion." 
 
 " Cyrus," a title, 85 
 
 Cyrus, King, 22, 27, 30, 32, 
 33> 355 89, 126, 160-165 
 
 Daniel, personality of, 7, 
 97, 98 
 
 18^ 
 
t84 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Daniel, his age when exiled, 
 
 19, 63, 64 
 
 fame of, 64-66 
 
 testimony of the Canon 
 
 to, 60, 99-1 1 1 
 Darius Hystaspes, 89, 118, 
 
 119, 121 11. 
 Darius the Mede, 12, 31, 33, 
 
 36-41, 179 
 David, King, 59 
 " Desolations," era of the, 21, 
 
 89, 112, 1 1 5-1 20 
 De Wette, 5 
 D'Orsay, death of Count, 
 
 36 «. 
 Driver, Professor, 23, 38, 43, 
 
 51, 55 «., 58 
 his Book of Datiiel, 
 
 his indictment of 
 
 Daniel, 179-182 
 — his answer to 
 present scheme, 135 
 
 the 
 
 ECCLESIASTICUS, Book of, 
 
 52-55» 57, 98 «., 100-102, 
 
 179 
 
 the " Cairene," 54 
 
 Edersheim, Dr., 52, 100 ;/., 
 
 108 
 Eichhorn, 4, 5 
 
 Esther, Book of, 58, 59, 88 « 
 Ezekiel, mention of Daniel 
 
 in, 62-66, 98 
 Ezra, Book of, 40, 57, 125 
 
 Farrar, Dean, his estimate of 
 
 the Bible, 9, 10, 20 
 his blunders, 2, 13, 14, 
 
 16-17, 18, 21, 24, 25, 63- 
 
 64, 82, 83, 84, 88 
 " Father," meaning of, 23 
 
 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 
 
 176 
 Girdlestone, Canon, no 
 Gobryas (Gubaru), 32, 37, 
 
 160-166 
 Great Synagogue, the, 44, 
 
 99, 100 «. 
 Greek words in Daniel, 42, 
 
 43, 44, 47, 144 
 
 Haggai, prophecy of, 119 
 Hebrew of Daniel, the, 42, 
 
 43, 49, SO, 53 
 Higher Criticism, the, i ff., 
 
 II, 61, 80, 95, 142, 143, 
 
 146, 182 
 Historical errors of Daniel, 
 
 12-41 
 Hosea, Book of, 55 
 Hyrcanus, John, 67, 104, 105 
 
 Incarnation, the, 72-78 
 Inspiration, 11, 20, 56, 77 n. 
 
 Jehoiakim, King, 12, 15, 16, 
 
 17, 18, 19, 22, 94, 153 
 Jeremiah, 20, 21, 157 
 Jesus. See " Ben-Sira." 
 Farrar, Dean, his Book of \ Josephus, 38, 83, 84, 86, 103 
 
 Daniel, 2jff. 
 
 Julius Africanus, 135 
 
INDEX 
 
 185 
 
 Kautzsch, Professor, 25, 
 168 
 
 Keil, 143 
 
 Kethuvim, the, 58, 59, 103 
 
 Kitto's Encydopcedia^ 61 «., 
 
 100 n. 
 Kuenen, 6 
 
 Language of Daniel, the, 
 
 Lewis, Sir G. C, 122 
 Luke, Gospel of, 131 
 Lux Mundi, 73 
 
 Maccabees, Book of, 66-68, 
 
 98, 109, 1 10 n. 
 Margoliouth, Professor, 52, 
 
 55«., 57 n., 98 71., 168 
 Megilloth, the, 59 
 Milman, Dean, 129 71. 
 Mt'shna, the, 120 «., 155, 156, 
 
 171, 172 
 
 Nabonidus (Nabunahid), 
 King, 23, 27, 29, 33, 35, 
 163, 164 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, King, 13 
 16,17,18,19,20,23,153-158 
 
 spelling of the name, 
 
 45 n-, 144 "■ 
 Nehemiah, 126-129, 140 «. 
 Neveeitn, the, 58 
 Newton, Sir Isaac, 68, 122 
 
 "Palm Sunday," the first, 
 
 132 
 Passion^ date of the, 133, 
 
 176-178 
 
 Persia, Kings of, 14 n. 
 Persian words in Daniel, 43, 
 
 48 
 Pinches, Mr. Theo. G., 161 
 
 162 
 Porphyry, 80, 141, 146 
 Psalms, the Book of, 59 
 " Ptolemaic System " of 
 
 Bible study, 147 
 Punctuation of Daniel ix., 
 
 125, 167-170 
 Pusey, Dr., 44, 49, 100 n. 
 
 Rawlinson, Canon, 23, 
 
 125 «., 154, 174 
 Revelation, Book of the, 78, 
 
 121 
 Ryle, Dr. (Bishop of Exeter), 
 
 99 «., loi, 102 71., 103 
 
 Sanhedrim, the, 97, 103, 
 
 104-109, 172, 173 
 Sayce, Professor, 27, 28, 30- 
 
 36, 47, 160, 161, 166 
 Schechter, Dr., 54, 55 «., 
 
 102 
 Septuagint version, the, 108 
 Servitude to Babylon, the, 
 
 21, 22, 89, 113, 157 
 Servitudes of Israel, the, 90, 
 
 128 71. 
 
 " Seventy Weeks," the, 82, 
 
 1 12-134 
 Sippara, 29, 32, 34 
 Specialists, 61 
 Stephen, Sir James F., 51 
 
1 86 
 
 Tablet. See " Annalistic 
 
 Tablet " 
 Tablets, the commercial, 33, 
 
 34 
 Tebet, Jewish fast of, 118 
 Tel el-Amarna tablets, the, 
 
 47 
 Tiberius Caesar, 132, 133, 
 
 176, 177 
 Torah, the, 58 
 
 Westcott, Bishop, 38, 68 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Xenophon, 38 
 
 Year, the prophetic, 116- 
 123 
 
 the ancient, 122 
 
 the Julian, 134 n. 
 
 the Jewish, 171 
 
 Zechariah, prophecy of, 
 119, 132 
 
 k: 
 
 ' ' ^ 
 
 THE END 
 
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