That our Lord did not assume to be a critical authority in the ordinary sense of the term is evident; for in this very case he referred to the Alexandrine version, without pausing to notice its variation from the Hebrew.  But our Lord knew whether the book of Daniel is a collection of real prophecies, or a spurious work composed several centuries after Daniel, imposing upon the world in Daniel’s name pretended prophecies written after the events.  Far be it from any one who believes in the reality of Christ’s supernatural mission thus to make him set the seal of his divine authority to the work of an impostor.  Heb. 11:33, 34 also refers undeniably to Daniel, chaps. 6 and 3.

(5.) The language of the book agrees with the age of Daniel.  The writer employs both Hebrew and Chaldee, thus indicating that he lives during the period of transition from the former to the latter language.  His Chaldee, moreover, like that of Ezra, contains Hebrew forms such as do not occur in the earliest of the Targums.  His Hebrew, on the other hand, agrees in its general character with that of Ezekiel and Ezra.  Though the Hebrew survived as the language of the learned for some time after the captivity, we cannot suppose that so late as the age of Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabees a Jewish author could have employed either such Hebrew as Daniel uses, or such Chaldee.

(6.) The author manifests intimate acquaintance with the historical relations, manners, and customs belonging to Daniel’s time.  Under this head writers have specified the custom of giving new names to those taken into the king’s service (1:7); the threat that the houses of the magi should be made a dunghill (2:5); the different forms of capital punishment in use among the Chaldeans and Medo-Persians; the dress of Daniel’s companions (3:21); the presence of women at the royal banquet (5:2), etc.  See Davidson’s Introduction, p. 920, who sums up the argument thus:  “It is improbable that an author in the Maccabean times should have been so uniformly accurate in his narrative, without having been in Babylon itself.”

22.  The objections urged against the book of Daniel are not of a nature to overthrow the mass of evidence in its favor.  They may be considered under the following heads: 

(1.) Various chronological and historical difficulties.  It is said that Jewish history knows no expedition of Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem in the third year of Jehoiakim.  The answer is that an expedition which apparently fell about this time is mentioned in 2 Kings 24:1.  The actual capture of the city, however, seems not to have taken place before the fourth year of Jehoiakim; for Jeremiah, in a prophecy dated in this fourth year, speaks in terms which imply that the threatened blow had not yet fallen.  Jer. 25:9.  Perhaps Daniel, chap. 1:1, dates from the beginning of the expedition, so that it fell partly in the third and partly in the fourth year of Jehoiakim.  It was in connection with this expedition of Nebuchadnezzar that he overthrew the army of Pharaoh-necho at Carchemish on the Euphrates; for that event also took place in the fourth year of Jehoiakim.  Jer. 46:2.