blackthorne

I was recently debating a fundie on the Book of Daniel, and in the process of regurgitating the usual arguments against early dating (anachronisms, apocolyptic genre, et cetera), I was referred to with this site:

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/qwhendan3a.html

1. The presence of mss of Daniel--esp. the early ones--when coupled with the 'high view' of Daniel as a 'prophet' (primary, Classical authority) would indicate a pre-Maccabean date (by a methodology admitted by non-conservatives).

2. The fact that Daniel is admitted to have been written before Qumran places it minimally pre-150, and, in light of the dual textual tradition, "canonical prophetic status", and pre-sectarian origins, would support a date of origination much, much earlier than 165 BC.

3. The use of Jubilees as authoritative interpretation at Qumran cannot be used successfully to undermine the argument (and the scholars making the "literary diffusion requirement" argument) in #2.

I'd be interested in hearing some opinions on Miller's summary of those three points, and his article in general, inimitably cluttered as it may be.

hedonist ogre

He makes a big deal about Daniel being found in Qumran and says that should close the deal. He says the inclusion in the DSS pushes the date for other documents back, so Daniel should be given the same treatment. The clean break in the accuracy of Daniel's prophecy (around 165 BCE) is the huge differing factor.

The biggest question is whether Jubilees provides good reason to believe that Daniel could be quickly accepted by the Qumran community, since Jubilees is generally dated to around the same time as Daniel. Miller claims that Jubilees was not held in as high a status as Daniel in Qumran. I find this to be nothing more than a quibble. Lets look at his list of distinctions:

1) Author of Jubilees not refered to as a prophet by other literature written by Qumran members. Jubilees is not a book of prophecy.

2) No difference.

3) Jubilees is not in the Hebrew bible and was not considered canonical by 1c BCE Judaism. The truth is, we don't know what the Hebrew canon was at this time. The list usually used comes from the writings of Ben Sira around 180 BCE. Curiously, Sira does not mention Daniel in his list of heros of Judaism.

4) Admits that Jubilees is cited as authoritative literature in the Damascus Document, one of the central legal texts of the community. He then tries to equivocate and make some subtle distinction in HOW it is used. Even if we agree with this extremely subtle distinction, it is clear Jubilees was seen as an authoritative document.

5) No secondary literature based on Jubilees. Qumran was an apocalyptic community, so Daniel would have been much more interesting to them.

6) Jubilees contains a re-telling of older OT books. So?

7) Not accepted as cannon by all of Judaism. Again, so what, this is a red herring. This only shows that Qumran was NOT as selective in their use of Jewish writings as Miller would have us to believe.

The most damning evidence against Daniel is the failure of the prophecy after 167 BCE. There used to be a good article by Curt van den Heuvel here , but the link doesn't seem to work.

ETA: The link does work.

blackthorne

Awesome. :notworthy Thanks...like, a lot and stuff.