DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN
PREFACE and
CONTENTS
SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
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. (
It appeared first as an article in Blackwood's Magazine, and afterwards
separately in book form.) Hitherto there has been no work in existence which
English exponents of the sceptical hypothesis would accept as 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 apparent force depends on a skilful presentation of doubtful evidence
upon the one side, to the exclusion of overwhelmingly cogent evidence 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 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 Company 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 exaggerate the importance of his own
testimony, and to betray impatience when evidence of another kind is allowed
legitimate weight. And nowhere is this tendency more marked than among the
critics.
In the preface to his Continuity of Scripture, Lord Hatherley speaks
of "the supposed evidence on which are based some very confident assertions of a
self-styled 'higher criticism.'" And he adds, "Assuming the learning to be
profound and accurate which has collected the material for much critical
performance, the logic by which conclusions 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 described in these concluding words.
Long accustomed to deal with evidence in difficult 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
conviction 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 literature 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 decision 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 fearlessness in applying critical methods to the study of the
Bible. But the Higher Criticism is a mere travesty of all true criticism.
Secular 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 external evidence. It
reeks of its evil origin in German infidelity. My indictment of it, therefore,
is not that it is criticism, but that 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 importance far beyond the special subject of which it treats. A
single instance will suffice. The "Annalistic 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 shared by a Median of such note that his name
was united with his own in the proclamation 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 forward for rejecting Daniel
clearly indicate that there is some potent reason of another kind in the
background. It was the miraculous 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 to refer to the work
alluded to by Professor Driver in his Book of Daniel - namely,
The
Coming Prince, or The Seventy Weeks of Daniel.
R.A.
PREFATORY
NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION
MOST of the "historical errors" in Daniel,
which Professor Driver has copied from Bertholdt's work of a century ago, have
been disposed of by the erudition and research of our own day. But the identity
of Darius the Mede has been referred to in former editions of the present work
as an unsolved historical difficulty in the Daniel controversy. That question,
however, seems to be settled by a verse in Ezra, which has hitherto been used
only by Voltaire and others to discredit the Prophet's narrative.
Ezra
records that in the reign of Darius Hystaspis the Jews presented a petition to
the King, in which they recited Cyrus' decree authorising the rebuilding of
their Temple. The wording of the petition clearly indicates that, to the
knowledge of the Jewish leaders, the decree in question had been filed in the
house of the archives in Babylon. But the search there made for it proved
fruitless, and it was ultimately found at Ecbatana (or Achmetha: Ezra vi. 2).
How, then, could a State paper of this kind have been transferred to the Median
capital?
The only reasonable explanation of this extraordinary fact completes
the proof that the vassal king whom Daniel calls Darius was the Median general,
Gobryas (or Gubaru), who led the army of Cyrus to Babylon. As noticed in these
pages (163, 165, ftost), the testimony of the inscriptions points to that
conclusion. After the taking of the city, his name was coupled with that of
Cyrus in proclaiming an amnesty. And he it was who appointed the governors or
prefects; which appointments Daniel states were made by Darius. The fact that he
was a prince of the royal house of Media, and presumably well known to Cyrus,
who had resided at the Median Court, would account for his being held in such
high honour. He had governed Media as Viceroy when that country was reduced to
the status of a province; and to any one accustomed to deal with evidence, the
inference will seem natural that, for some reason or other, he was sent back to
his provincial throne, and that, in returning to Ecbatana, he carried with him
the archives of his brief reign in Babylon.
I will only add that the
confusion and error which the "Higher Critics" attribute to the sacred writers
are mainly due to their own failure to distinguish between the several judgments
of the era of the exile - the "Servitude," the "Captivity," and the
"Desolations" (Jer. xxix. 10; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 21.
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: BELSHAZZAR AND DARIUS THE MEDE . . . 23
IV. "PHILOLOGICAL
PECULIARITIES": THE LANGUAGE OF DANIEL . . . . . 42
V. THE POSITIVE
EVIDENCE IN FAVOUR OF DANIEL . . . . . . . 56
VI. "VIOLENT
ERRORS" . . . . . 7.9
VII. PROFESSOR DRIVER'S
"BOOK OF DANIEL "- THE EVIDENCE OF THE CANON . . 92
VIII. THE VISION OF THE
"SEVENTY WEEKS "- THE PROPHETIC YEAR . . . . 112
IX. THE FULFILMENT OF
THE VISION OF THE "WEEKS" . . . . . . 124
X. SUMMARY AND
CONCLUSION . . . 135
APPENDICES
I. NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S
FIRST INVASION OF JUDEA . 153
II. THE DEATH OF
BELSHAZZAR 160
III. THE PUNCTUATION OF
DANIEL IX. 167
IV. THE JEWISH
CALENDAR . . . 171
V. THE TWENTIETH
YEAR OF ARTAXERXES . 174
VI. THE DATE OF
THE CRUCIFIXION . . 176
VII. PROFESSOR DRIVER'S
INDICTMENT OF DANIEL 179
Daniel in the Critics'
Den - Chapter One