The Linguistic Problem. 

        Driver’s dictum is well known: “The Persian words pre­suppose a period after the Persian empire had been well established: the Greek words demand, the Hebrew supports, and the Aramaic permits a date after the conquest of Palestine by Alexander the Great (332 B.C.)” (Driver, LOT, p. 508.). We are not going to enter into linguistic discussions here, for while it has been proved that the language is compatible with the book’s having been written in the fifth century B.C., nothing more than the bare possibility of a sixth-century date can be shown.

        But the linguistic phenomena are more complex than the dictum just quoted suggests. From 2:4b (“O king, live for ever…”) to 7:28 the book is not written in Hebrew but in Aramaic, and it is almost universally recognized that the words “in the Syrian language” in 2:4 dp not mean that Daniel spoke in that language — for Babylonian was the court language — but are merely a warning to the copyist that the language is changing. This change of language sets a problem that has seldom been adequately considered by conservatives.

        The usual explanation that Aramaic, an international language, is used because these chapters deal with the nations, while chs. 8-12 deal with the Jews, is a possibility. 8:26; 12:4, 9 seem to preclude any idea that the book was to be widely circulated. In any case, we should expect under this theory the Aramaic to begin with 2:1 or even 1:1.

        Many suggestions have been made by scholars, but there is only one which we consider covers all aspects of the problem. It is that the book was translated into Aramaic a century or more after its original composition. In course of time part of the original Hebrew was lost, and it was replaced by the Aramaic. The objection that the break could not have come so conveniently seems to have little force. It might have been anywhere in ch. 2, but the scribe responsible for the present form of Daniel would have made the transfer at what seemed the most suitable spot.

        It can hardly be just a coincidence that all the Greek words, and all but three of the Persian, are in the Aramaic section. If the writer were a catcher up of foreign words, one would expect a more even distribution of them. If, however, the Aramaic is a century or two later, there is no difficulty in the translator’s use of words which had become far commoner by his time. It will, however, be objected that any such loss of the Hebrew is inconceivable; but what evidence there is hardly supports the objection.