Book of Daniel - Authorship and Dating

Authorship and Dating

The traditional theory that Daniel was the original author of the Book of Daniel has been disputed by recent scholars. Although the book has been historically classified as prophetic, the style of writing is apocalyptic which was popular between 200 BCE and 100 CE.

Critics of Daniel, at least since the third century works of Porphyry, view the Book of Daniel as a pseudepigraph dated around 165 BCE that concerns itself primarily with the Maccabean era and the reign of the Seleucid king Antiochus Epiphanes. Those who share this view typically adhere to the Maccabean thesis when analyzing the Book of Daniel. The stories of chapters 1-6 are considered to be a literary genre of legends that are older than the visions of chapters 7-12. The visions in the latter half of Daniel are theorized to have been written by an anonymous author in the Maccabean era who assembled the legends with the visions as one book in the 2nd century BCE. According to this view, it is not considered to be read as a prophecy of western political history or of an eschatological future. Rather, the critical focus is on the witness to the religiosity of the Maccabean time period.

In 1965, Norman Porteous postulated that an anonymous writer wrote the book during the persecution under Antiochus. According to this theory the anonymous author attributed events that were witnessed by this writer in the 2nd century BCE to Daniel as prophecies. Paul Roche observes that the author abounded in mistakes and anachronisms, using Daniel as a symbol for the faithful Jew serving Yahweh, and the use of various pagan kings as symbols of heathenism. Critics acknowledge that the author of Daniel was familiar with the history of Near Eastern imperial power from the sixth to the second centuries but the writer's incomplete and erroneous view of historical details in the second half of the sixth century, Daniel’s era, support the theory of a late date of writing.

Porteous and Roche agree that the Book of Daniel is composed of folktales that were used to fortify the Jewish faith during a time of great persecution and oppression by the Hellenized Seleucids some four centuries after the Babylonian captivity. James VanderKam and Peter W. Flint further explain that the stories of Daniel and his friends, set in Babylon during the Exile, encouraged readers to remain faithful to God and to refuse compromise in the face of their oppressors, and offered the prospect of triumph over wickedness and idolatry. These themes may have brought encouragement to the Qumran covenanters who were persecuted by other Jews and also threatened by Hellenization.

The discovery of the scroll 4QDanc (dating 125 BCE) at Qumran does not reassure critics that Daniel was written in the 2nd century BCE. G. R. Driver recognized that "the presence and popularity of the Daniel manuscripts at Qumran" conflicted "with the modern view which advocates the late dating of the composition of Daniel".

Though many evangelical commentators still defend a sixth century date, for mainstream scholarship the issue was settled over a century ago The common view is that the court tales represent a stratum of older, traditional stories, while the visions and final redaction of the work date to the second century BCE. The visions describe the national crisis that occurred under Antiochus IV Epiphanes, a Seleucid king who persecuted and slaughtered thousands of observant Jews, polluted the Jerusalem temple, and tried to replace traditional customs with Hellenistic religious practices.