was first carried into capt. sity, he might be a youth about eighteen :* out when Ezekiel magnified his piety and wisdom, chap. xiv. and xxviii. he was between thirty and forty: and several years before hat he had interpreted Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and was advanced. Dan. ii. 48, to be 'ruler over the whole province of Babylon, and chief of the governors over all the wise men of Babylon' and was therefore very fit and worthy to be celebrated by his fellow-captive Ezekiel. : 2. His second objection is, that Daniel is represented in the book of Daniel as living chiefly at the courts of the kings of Babylon and Persia and yet the names of the several kings of his time are all mistaken in the book of Daniel. It is also more suited to a fabulous writer than to a contemporary historian, to talk of 'Nebuchadnezzar's dwelling with the beasts of the field, and eating grass like oxen,' &c. and then returning again to the government of his kingdom. Here are two objections confounded in one. As to the mistake of the king's name, there are only four kings mentioned in the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, Dariusthe Mede, and Cyrus. Of the first and the last there was never any doubt: and the other two may be rightly named, though they are named differently by the Greek historians, who yet differ as much one from another as from Daniel. It is well known that the eastern monarchs had several names; and one might be made use of by one writer, another by another. It is plainly begging the question, to presume without farther proof that Daniel was not the oldest of these writers, and had not better opportunities of knowing the names than any of them. As to the case of Nebuchadnezzar, it is related indeed in the prophetic figurative style. It is the interpretation of a dream, and, stript of its figures, the plain meaning is, that Nebuchadnezzar should be punished with madness, should fancy himself a beast, and live nкe a beast, should be made to eat grass as oxen,' be obliged to live upon a vegetable diet, but after some time should recover his reason, and resume the government. And what is there fabulous or absurd in this? The dream was not of Daniel's inditing, but was told by Nebuchadnezzar himself. The dream is in a poetic strain, and so likewise is the interpretation, the better to show how the one corresponds with the other, and how the prophecy and event agreed together. 3. He objects that the book of Daniel could not be written by that Daniel who was carried captive in the Babylonish captivity, Prideaux's Connection, part 1, book 1. because it abounds with derivations from the Greek, which language was unknown to the Jews till long after the captivity. The asser tion is false, that the book of Daniel abounds with derivations from the Greek. There is an affinity only between some few words in the Greek and the Chaldee language: and why must they be derived the one from the other? or, if derived, why should not the Greeks. derive them from the Chaldee, rather than the Chaldees from the Greek? If the words in question could be shown to be of Greek extraction, yet there was some communication between the eastern kingdoms and the colonies of the Greeks settled in Asia Minor before Nebuchadnezzar's time; and so some particular terms might pass from the Greek into the oriental languages. But on the contrary the words in question are shewn to be not of Greek, but of eastern derivation; and consequently passed from the east to the Greeks, rather than from the Greeks to the east. Most of the words are names of musical instruments; and the Greeks acknowledge, that they received their music from the eastern nations, from whence they themselves originally descended.* 4. It doth not appear, saith the objector, that the book of Daniel was translated into Greek, when the other books of the Old Testament were, which are attributed to the Seventy; the present Greek version, inserted in the Septuagint, being taken from Theodotion's translation of the Old Testament, made in the second century after Christ. But it doth appear, that there was an ancient Greek version of Daniel, which is attributed to the Seventy, as well as the version of the other books of the Old Testament. It is cited by Clemens Romanus, Justin Martyr, and many of the ancient fathers. It was inserted in Origen, and filled a column of his Hexapla. It is quoted several times by Jerome; and he saith expressly, that" the version of the Seventy was repudiated by the doctors of the Church, and that of Theodotion substituted in the room of it, because it came nearer to the Hebrew verity." This version hath also been lately published from an ancient M.S. discovered in the Chigian library at Rome. * Και τω Διονύσω την Ασίαν όλην καθιερώσαντες μέχρι της Ινδικής, έκείθεν και την πολλήν MY METABEσ. Et cum Baccho totam Asiam ad Indiam usque consecraverint, magnam quoque musicæ partem inde transferunt. [And having consecrated to Bacchus the whole of Asia, as far as to India, they receive from thence a considerable part of their music.] Strabo, lib. 10, p. 471, edit. Paris. 1620; p. 722, edit. Amstel. 1707. Vide etiam Athenæi, lib. 14, p. 625, &c. † Danielem prophetam juxta Septuaginta interpretes Domini Salvatoris ecclesia non legunt, utentes Theodotionis editione :- quod multum a veritate discordet, of 5. It is objected that divers matters of fact are spoken of with the clearness of history, to the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, who is very particularly dwelt upon, and that with great and seeming fresh resentment for his barbarous usage of the Jews: and this clearness determined Porphyry, and would determine any one to think, that the book was written about the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, the author appearing to be well acquainted with things down to the death of Antiochus, but not farther. But what an argument is this against the book of Daniel! His prophecies are clear, and therefore are no prophecies: as if an all-knowing God could not foretel things clearly; or as if there were not many predictions in other prophets, as clear as any in Daniel. If his prophecies extend not lower than the times of Antiochus Epiphanes, his commission might be limited there, and he would not go beyond his commission. But it hath been shown, and will be showr that there are several prophecies in Daniel, relating to times long after the death of Antiochus, and these prophecies are as clear as those before the death of Antiochus. Neither is Antiochus so very particularly dwelt upon as is commonly imagined; neither is he spoken of with greater resentment, than other prophets express towards the kings of Assyria and Babylon. All honest men, who love liberty and their country, must speak with indignation of ty. rants and oppressors. 6. His sixth objection is, that Daniel is omitted among the prophets recited in Ecclesiasticus, where it seems proper to have mentioned him as a Jewish prophet-author, had the book under his name been received as canonical, when Ecclesiasticus was published. It might have been proper to have mentioned him, had the author been giving a complete catalogue of the Jewish canonical writers. But that is not the case. He mentions several who never pretended to be inspired writers, and omits others who really were so. No mention is made of Job and Ezra, and of the books under their names, as well as of Daniel : and who can account for the silence of authors in any particular, at this distance of time? Daniel is proposed, 1 Macc. ii. 60, as a pattern by the father of the Macabees, and his recto judicio repudiatus sit. [The churches of our Lord the Saviour do not read the prophecies of Daniel according to the Septuagint, but use the version of Theodotion; because the former is at great variance with the truth, and is properly rejected.] Hieron. Præf. in Dan. vol. 1, p. 987. Judicio magistrorum ecclesiæ editio eorum [LXX] repudiata est, et Theodotionis vulgo legitur, quæ et Hebræo, et cæteris translatoribus congruit, &c. Translated in the text.] Comment. in Dan. iv. col. 1088, vol. 3, edit. Benedict. : wisdom is highly recommended by Ezekiel and these are sufficient testimonies of his antiquity, without the confirmation of a later writer. 7. It is objected, that Jonathan, who made the Chaldee paraphrases on the prophets, has omitted Daniel; from whence it should seem, the book of Daniel was not of that account with the Jews, as the other books of the prophets were. But there are other books, which were always accounted canonical among the Jews, and yet have no Chaldee paraphrases extant, as the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Jonathan might perhaps not make a Targum or Chaldee paraphrase on Daniel, because half of the book is written in Chaldee. Or he might have made a Targum on Daniel, and that Targum may have been lost, as other ancient Targums have been destroyed by the injury of time; and there are good proofs in the Misna and other writers, cited by Bishop Chandler, that there was an ancient Targum on Daniel. But though Jonathan made no Targum on Daniel, yet in his interpretation of other prophets, he frequently applies the prophecies of Daniel, as fuller and clearer in describing the same events; and consequently Daniel was in his esteem a prophet, and at least of equal authority with those before him. The ranking of Daniel among the Hagiographa, and not among the prophets, was done by the Jews since Christ's time, for very obvious reasons He was always esteemed a prophet by the ancient Jewish church Our Saviour calleth him Daniel the prophet;' and Josephus speak eth of him as one of the greatest prophets.* 8. That part of Daniel, says the objector, which is written in Chaldee, is near the style of the old Chaldee paraphrases; which, being composed many hundred years after Daniel's time, must have a very different style from that used in his time, as any one may judge from the nature of language, which is in a constant flux, and in every age deviating from what it was in the former and therefore that part could not be written at a time very remote from the date of the eldest of those Chaldee paraphrases. But by the same argument Homer cannot be so ancient an author, as he is generally reputed, because the Greek language continued much the same many hundred years after his time. Nay, the style of Daniel's Chaldee differs more from that of the old Chaldee paraphrases, than Homer doth from the latest of the Greek classic writers: and when it was said by Prideaux and Kidder, whose authority the objector alleges, that the old Chaldee paraphrases came near to the Chaldee of Daniel, it was not said absolutely, but comparatively with respect to other paraphrases, which did not come near to Daniel's purity. 9. It is objected, that the Jews were great composers of books under the names of their renowned prophets, to do themselves honor, and particularly under the name of Daniel : and the book of Daniel seems composed to do honor to the Jews, in the person of Daniel, in making a Jew superior to all the wise men of Babylon. If there is any force in this objection, it is this-There have been books counterfeited under the names of men of renown, therefore there can be no genuine books of the same men. Some pieces in Greek have been forged under the name of Daniel, and therefore he wrote no books in Chaldee and Hebrew long before those forgeries. In like manner some poems have been ascribed to Homer and Virgil, which were not of their composing; and therefore the one did not compose the Iliad, nor the other the Eneid. Some false writings have been attributed to St. Peter and St. Paul; and therefore there are no true writings of those apostles. Such arguments sufficiently expose and refute themselves. One would think the inference should rather lie on the other side. Some books have been counterfeited in the name of this or that writer; and therefore that there were some genuine books of his writing, is a much more probable presumption than the contrary. 10. The tenth objection is, that the author of the book of Daniel appears plainly to be a writer of things past, after a prophetical manner, by his uncom.non punctuality, by not only foretelling things to come, like other prophets, but fixing the time when the things were to happen. But other prophets, and other prophecies, have prefixed the times for several events; as 120 years for the continuance of the antediluvian world; 400 years for the sojourning of Abraham's seed in a strange land; 40 years for the perigrination of the children of Israel; 65 years for Ephraim's continuing a people; 70 years for the desolation of Tyre; 70 years for Judah's captivity, and the like: and therefore the fixing of the times cannot be a particular objection against the prophecies of Daniel. Daniel may have done it in more instances than any other prophet: but why might not God, if he was so pleased, foretel the dates and periods of any events, as well as the events themselves? Josephus, whom the objector hath quoted upon this occasion, differs totally from him. He ascribes this punctuality to divine |