Book of Daniel Critical Essay | Critical Essay by J. Dyneley Prince

Critical Essay by J. Dyneley Prince

SOURCE: Prince, J. Dyneley. The Book of Daniel, Designed Especially for Students of the English Bible, pp. 1-56. London: Williams & Norgate, 1899.

In the following excerpt, Prince reviews past scholarship on The Book of Daniel, arguing that it is a unified work and rejecting doubts about its authorship by the Hebrew prophet Daniel.

The Literary Unity of the Work.

Regarding the literary unity of Daniel, opinions vary. Some critics, owing to the great difference in style between the two divisions of the book, have believed in a separate origin for the first six chapters¹. Moreover, the fact that from ii. 4 through vii, the text is in Aramaic and not in Hebrew has not unnaturally influenced some scholars to believe that the Aramaic portions have a separate origin from the other parts of the book².

Uniformity of the Prophecies.

A comparison of the apocalyptic and narrative chapters, however, makes it apparent that we have the same prophecies in all...
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