Aspirin99

I'm trying to find any information on when Daniel was first considered part of the Septuagint. It seems to me it was placed there by Christians, and, while Daniel may have been used to invigorate the Jewish revolt against Antiochus, it still was only relegated to holy writ outside of the canon. Daniel is not in the The Prologue to Ben Sira (c180 BCE), which is generally considered the earliest witness to a Jewish canon. It was in Greek sometime in the first century CE, but was such a poor translation that later Origen wouldn't use it.

I found this quote here: http://department.monm.edu/classics/...sundbergJr.htm

Sorry for such a long quote.

"Cross (1956:122-123) adds still another important feature to the discussion about the shape of the canon in the first half of the first century C.E. He is able to tell us that it is very probable that Daniel was not regarded as canonical at Qumran. This results from his analysis of the formats of documents and styles of script. Cross says that it is a fairly standard practice in copying biblical books that the columns tend to be twice as long as they are wide. The script is usually the Jewish bookhand, or occasionally the Paleo-Hebrew script--but not the cursive. The material of the scroll is leather. The same techniques sometimes apply for non-biblical texts among which there is a great deal of variety. But biblical texts are much more standardized. In the case of Daniel, however, Cave 4 held a manuscript of Daniel written on papyrus. One other biblical manuscript written on papyrus has been found, in Cave 6, the Book of Kings (clearly canonical). The script standardization does not always hold up. Cave 4 has produced some biblical manuscripts written in cursive Hebrew, but they are rare. Also biblical works with a-typical (for canonical books) columns, typical for non-canonical books have also appeared in other caves. Most of these are works whose canonicity was questioned by the early rabbis, Canticles and Ecclesiastes. Thus the evidence in these matters is not infallible. However, at least four different copies of Daniel found at Qumran do not conform to the standards for biblical manuscripts. This, Cross (1956:123) concludes, "strongly suggests its (Daniels) non-canonical status."

I'm looking for any pre-Christian evidence that Daniel was considered part of the Septuagint. I'm aware of Josephus' regurgitation on the subject of the canon.

Aspirin99

I guess this is not a hot topic. That's okay. I'll talk to myself then (hehe).

I've discovered something that might be interesting. Daniel seems to be the origin of the concept of archangels Gabriel and Michael. The 2nd century BCE seems to have been a hot bed of development in the area of Angels. Angels had been discussed in earlier writings, but they had never been given names (that I know of).

The only other semi canonical work to name an archangel was Tobit. That book named Raphael. I discovered that Tobit (fragments) was also found in Cave 4 right along with Daniel. Tobit was written around the same time as Daniel (maybe a little earlier like 180 BCE). Guess what else it has in common with Daniel - It was also written in both Aramaic and Hebrew. I don't know how significant that is, other than it provides a potential similarity for dating.

The other apocryphal work to give names to angels (though not consider archangels) was the Book of Enoc. It was also written some time early in the 2nd century BCE. So, this shows that giving names to Angels was common to this time.

I think all of these together provide another reason to believe that Daniel was a work of the 2nd century BCE.

EDIT: edit for typo.

spin

Few academics would think Daniel were anything but a 2nd c. BCE work. The historical allusions in the work repeatedly come down to Antiochus IV: he is the little horn in ch.7, he is the desecrator of the temple in ch.9 and the last king of the north in ch.11.

Forget about Cross. I get the idea that he wouldn't know where his best friend was if he weren't within reach. The notion of canon is a weasel, probably imposed much later -- though I can't see why Daniel couldn't be included in what the intro to Ben Sira says.

Dating the LXX is another major problem. The Aristeas story is obviously apocryphal, so we cannot trust it to put the foundation of the LXX into the early 3rd c. BCE -- besides that would give little time for Greek to be established outside Ptolemaic circles. However, we know that Theodotion's translation, which was around in the late 2nd c. CE, didn't contain the errors of the Old Greek translation of Daniel. This is why both versions are found in the LXX.


spin

Aspirin99

spin, thanks for the response. I'd be very interested in why you are dismissing Cross' comparison of the treatment of canonical vs non-canonical compositions at Qumran. Do you have some experience in paleography? Or other experience with Cross? My question is sincere- because, if what he says has any credence, it lends strong support to some ideas I'm working on.

spin

My basic approach to the Albright School (and Cross was an Albright student) is to trust nothing that comes out of it unless tangible evidence comes along to support it.

I don't have experience in palaeography. I can tell well formed letters from not so well formed ones and distinguish a few characteristics, but no experience. I do have some theoretical concerns on the subject of Cross's unsupported palaeographic sequence. Cross takes the bulk of the hands from Qumran and decides a) that they essentially fit into a single sequence, ie no possibility of parallel sequencing at all (as one might find from different urban centres or scribal schools), then uses arbitrary indicators to say approximately when forms were used, while providing no indication of how long a specific set of characters may have been used for. The arbitrary indicators are often based on insecure data (eg an ostracon found by the archaeologist de Vaux, who claimed that it was from a specific period, so Cross assumes that era, though archaeological interpretation could easily supply a different period) or even conflicting data (when a form is dated to a period which differs from his sequence he says that he doesn't find the dating convincing, as in the case of the Gezer boundary markers).

Many decades ago an English scholar by the name of Driver warned that palaeography was the handmaiden of history, not vice versa. Most Qumran scholars have abnegated their responsibilities and accepted Cross's sequence willy-nilly. It has almost never been improved on or modified, as though it were perfect at birth. Warning bells should ring with such an idea.

I find that the man can simply not be trusted in much at all that is not straight fact and you need to know a fair bit about what he's talking about to decide what actually is fact.

Qumran is slowly having some effect on scholarly understandings of canon, for we find that numerous works thought to have been fixed by some canon have various forms at Qumran, and in at least one pesher we find one text form being cited, yet another text form is commented on, as though both forms were seen as valid.

The use of his ideas and analyses will be received well enough in christian circles.


spin

Aspirin99

Thanks. That is helpful.