Daniel.
Christians class Daniel with the Greater Prophets, and assign its authorship to the sixth century B.C. It belongs to the Hagiographa and was one of the last books of the Old Testament to be written.
A considerable portion of the book relates to Belshazzar. Twenty times in one chapter is he referred to as the king of Babylon, and five times is he called the son of Nebuchadnezzar. Yet Belshazzar was not the son of Nebuchadnezzar, neither was he king of Babylon. Again the author devotes several chapters to Darius “the Median,” who, he says, defeated the Chaldeans and conquered Babylon. Now, nearly everybody, excepting this writer, supposed that it was Cyrus the Persian who conquered Babylon. Darius “the Median” was never king of Babylon. This book was written by one ignorant of Babylonian history, and not by Daniel, who lived in Babylon, and who is said to have been next to the king in authority.
Prof. A. H. Sayce, Professor of Assyriology in Oxford University, considered by many the greatest of archaeologists, a believer in the divinity of the Bible and an opponent of Higher Criticism, is compelled to reject Daniel. In a recent article, he says: “The old view of the old Book is correct excepting the book of Daniel, which is composed of legends.... The historical facts as we know them from the contemporaneous records are irreconcilable with the statements found in the historical portions of Daniel.”
This statement, aside from its rejection of Daniel, is significant. Here is a man whose life-long study and researches make him preeminently qualified to judge of one book’s authenticity and credibility. This book he rejects. The books he accepts are those concerning which he is not specially qualified to judge.
Dr. Arnold says: “I have long thought that the greater part of the book of Daniel is most certainly a very late work, of the time of the Maccabees” (Life and Correspondence, Vol. II., p. 188). This conclusion of Dr. Arnold’s, made seventy years ago, is confirmed by the later critics who place its composition in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, about 165 B.C.
A part, if not all of the book, was written in Aramaic. In the Greek version the three small Apocryphal books, History of Susannah, Song of the Three Holy Children, and Bel and the Dragon, are included in it. The fact that the Jews placed Daniel in the Hagiographa, instead of the Prophets, is fatal to the claims regarding its authorship and date.