This small but scholarly volume dis cusses "several of the issues that have contributed to the radical change in our modern understanding of the book of Daniel." Ferch considers the academic discussion of the past 20 years concerning issues of text, canon, authorship, unity, and date of writing; and he evaluates the evidence that allegedly points to the second century B.C. as the time of the book's composition.
Ferch insists that a sixth-century B.C. date for Daniel is validated by the fact that the book was placed among the prophets by the Qumran community, the Septuagint, Theodotion, Christ, and josephus.
The longer version of Daniel, accepted by Catholics as deutero-canonical and by historico-critical scholars as representative of the latest stage in the book's development, is found to be apocryphal and without acceptance in the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is not cited by any New Testament authors, and is rejected by later Jewish tradition (as seen in the Masoretic text).
For centuries Jewish and Christian scholars agreed on a sixth-century B.C. date for the writing of Daniel. Most of the questions concerning authorship and literary unity did not come about until recent times; they come through historical rather than literary criticism. The narrative prophecy sequence and the chiastic structure of the 12 chapters shows an inner coherence (see also the horizontal-vertical activity of the little horn in Daniel 8:9-12 and 9:24-27).
As to the dating problem, Ferch indicates the merits of the Exilic thesis over the Maccabean thesis. He notes that the Persian vocabulary in Daniel speaks for an earlier rather than a later date, while pointing out that other evidence, discovered in this century, supports the later date. Ferch shows that the dating of Daniel cannot be decided on linguistic grounds alone, nor from the lack of reference to it in earlier extrabiblical literature. Today a majority of scholars concur that the Babylonian and Persian empires provide the ideal settings for the stories of Daniel 1-6.
But most scholars place the prophetic section (chapters 7-12) in the Maccabean period. Rather than admitting the possibility of true prophecy, they consider this material nonpredictive and assume that it was written after the events described. The evidence Ferch uses in disputing the Maccabean thesis includes: (1) the sparsity of primary contemporary sources depicting historical events from 167-164 B.C.; (2) disagreement in the sources, including the cause of the religious persecution of the Jews; (3) the fact that the so-called similarities between the little horn and Antiochus do not out weigh the far more numerous dissimilarities, such as the far greater magnitude of the little horn and king of the north compared to Antiochus IV Epiphanes; (4) the absence in Daniel of the call to arms the Maccabees contain; and (5) the fact that the heroes of the Maccabees (Mattathias and Judas Maccabaeus) of the Maccabees are unnamed in Daniel.
Ferch evaluates Daniel as an apocalyptic book (chapters 7-12), and concludes by showing that "once we accept the unity, exilic origin, and apocalyptic nature of the book of Daniel, the only consistent method of interpreting the prophetic chapters is that suggested by the historicist school."
I find this a well-thought-out presentation that gives a scholarly, systematic, and convincing defense of the traditional position on Daniel.
