DANIEL IN THE CRITICS' DEN
By
SIR ROBERT ANDERSON
PREFACE and
CONTENTS
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