Both the critical scholars and the conservative scholars have the same evidence on the authorship of Daniel, yet come to opposite conclusions. The obvious difference is their attitude toward Scripture. One has a high view of inspiration and inerrancy and the other has a low view. It is like the difference between Lee Strobel and Bart Ehrman. Lee Strobel began as an atheists who examined Scripture and became a Christian. Bart Ehrman began as a professing Christian who examined the same Scripture and became an atheist. They both had the identical evidence but it was their attitude that was the determining factor. God’s Word is trustworthy and supernatural which the book of Daniel proves.
S. R. Driver, a higher critic of God’s Word, argued on page 68 in his commentary on Daniel that the Aramaic of Daniel 2:4-7:28 was “from the 3rd cent. B.C. to the 2nd cent. A.D.” Here is S. R. Driver’s famous quote: “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 (B.C. 332)”[1]
Walvoord also mentions Driver’s criticism on page 48 in his commentary. You can find S. R. Diver's archived commentary through Wikipedia. Driver is arguing against the historicity of the OT Bible character Daniel who, conservatives, believe wrote in the sixth century. Driver's argument strips the book of Daniel of supernatural prophecy predicted in the sixth century by claiming the book of Daniel is history written by a second century forger. H. H. Rowley in The Aramaic of the Old Testament also argued that the Aramaic of Daniel is closer to the Aramaic of the second century. In 1974, David F. Hinson, was still making this argument: “The language in which the book is written supports the idea that it was composed in the time of Antiochus IV.”[2]
1. The Imperial or Official Aramaic Argument.
Conservative scholar, K. A. Kitchen after his in-depth study of this issue came to the opposite conclusion: “These facts suggest an origin for the Persian words in the Aramaic of Daniel before c. 300 bc.”[3] Kitchen added: In the first place the Aramaic of Daniel and of Ezra is shown to be Imperial Aramaic, ‘in itself, practically undatable with any conviction within c. 600 to 330 BC’. The only indication of a place of origin arises out of the word order, which betrays Akkadian influence, and proves ‘that the Aramaic of Daniel (and Ezra) belongs to the early tradition of Imperial Aramaic (seventh-sixth to fourth centuries BC) as opposed to later and local, Palestinian derivatives of Imperial Aramaic.’[4] Jongtae Choi in 1994 argued that the Aramaic of Daniel matched the Imperial or official Aramaic of the 5th century Elephantine papyri marriage document from 449 BC, which was discovered in 1893 by Charles Edwin Wilbour. Thomas Constable in his introduction to Nehemiah wrties “The Elephantine papyri are letters the Jews in Babylon sent to Jews who had fled to a colony in southern Egypt called Elephantine following the destruction of Jerusalem. They throw much light on Jewish life as it existed in Babylon during the exile.”
2. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls of Daniel Argument.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls of Daniel confirm that the book has these two languages from the sixth century. Joyce Baldwin quotes conservative OT scholar R. K. Harrison on the importance of the discovery of Daniel among the Dead Sea scrolls. She notes that R. K. Harrison is of the opinion that the Maccabean dating (second century) of Daniel is “absolutely precluded by the evidence from Qumran … there would have been insufficient time for Maccabean compositions to be circulated, venerated, and accepted as canonical Scripture by a Maccabean sect.”[5] The Daniel Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered around 150 BC. The critics say Daniel was written around 165 BC. It was not possible for the Daniel to have his book in Babylon and in only 15 years for these scrolls to have circulated all the way to the Dead Sea and have been accepted as Scripture. This is possible if Daniel was written in the sixth century.
3. The word order in the Aramaic of Daniel Argument.
The word order in the Aramaic of Daniel is subject-object-verb and is a distinction of fifth century Aramaic papyri from Egypt. C. Hassell Bullock argues: “One of most interesting phenomena in the Aramaic of Daniel, however, is the word order, which usually follows the pattern of subject-object-verb. That stands in sharp contrast to certain Dead Sea documents of Aramaic, the Genesis Apocryphon and the Targum of Job, both close to the time of the supposedly second-century composition of Daniel. As Kitchen has observed, the word order of Daniel agrees with the Asshur ostracon of the seventh century B.C. and with the freedom of word order that characterized the fifth-century Aramaic papyri form Egypt.”[6]
4. This phenomenon was not usual in the O.T. Argument.
Other sections of the O.T. are written in Aramaic, such as, Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:1-26; Jeremiah 10:11, and two words in Genesis 31:47. Gleason L. Archer argues that “the Jews apparently took no exception to the Aramaic sections in the book of Ezra, most of which consists in copies of correspondence carried on in Aramaic between the local governments of Palestine and the Persian imperial court from approximately 520 to 460 B.C. If Ezra can be accepted as an authentic document from the middle of the fifth century, when so many of its chapters were largely composed in Aramaic, it is hard to see why the six Aramaic chapters of Daniel must be dated two centuries later than that. It should be carefully observed that in the Babylon of the late sixth century, in which Daniel purportedly lived, the predominant language spoken by the heterogeneous population of this metropolis was Aramaic. It is therefore not surprising that an inhabitant of that city should have resorted to Aramaic in composing a portion of his memoirs”[7] One reason the critics accept the Aramaic of Ezra and not Daniel is because there is no supernatural predictive prophecy in Ezra.
But why did Daniel use Hebrew in 1:1-2:3 and chapter 8-12 and Aramaic in the center section?
In 2:4-7:28, Daniel is predicting the future ruling Gentile nations which included Babylon, Medes-Persians, Greece, and Rome. These chapters were written in Aramaic or the language of the Gentiles. Daniel lived at the beginning of “the times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24) when Gentile nations rule over God’s chosen people. The times of the Gentiles run from Nebuchadnezzar to the Second Coming of Christ in Revelation 19. Daniel in chapter one and eight through twelve is writing about the Jews and therefore writes in the Jewish language. In chapter one, Daniel writes about the past of the Jews. The Jews were taken captive and deported to Babylon. In chapter eight and following, Daniel writes about the future of the Jews and switches back to Hebrews.
J. Dwight Pentecost explains this point well: The Book of Daniel is unusual in that it is written in two languages: 1:1-2-4a and chapters 8-12 are in Hebrew, and 2:4a-7:28 is in Aramaic, the lingua franca of the prophet’s day. Hebrew was the language of God’s covenant people Israel, and Aramaic was the language of the Gentile world. Though the Book of Daniel is a single literary work, it has two major emphases. One has to do with God’s program for the Gentile nations. This is contained in 2:4a-7:28. It was fitting that this prophecy concerning the Gentiles should be in their language. Hence the prophet used Aramaic in that portion of the book. The second major emphasis is on the nation Israel and the influence or effect of the Gentiles on Israel. This theme is developed in 1:1-2:4a and chapters 8-12. Therefore it was fitting that Daniel wrote those portions in Hebrew, that language of the Jews.[8]
The Associates for Biblical Research provide archaeological and Biblical for defending the sixth century writing of Daniel.
[1] S. R. Driver. Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament (1909), 508.
[2] D. F. Hinson, Old Testament Introduction 2: The Books of the Old Testament (Theological Education Fund Study Guide 10) (SPCK, 1974), 129.
[3] K. A. Kitchen, in Notes on Some Problems in the Book of Daniel, (35–44).
[4] Choi, Jongtae (1994), "The Aramaic of Daniel: Its Date, Place of Composition and Linguistic Comparison with Extra-Biblical Texts," Ph. D. dissertation (Deerfield, IL: Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) xvii, 288 pp.
[5] J. G. Baldwin. Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1978), Vol. 23, 51.
[6] Ibid.,
[7] C. Hassell Bullock. An Introduction to the Old Testament Prophetic Books (Chicago: Moody Press, 1986), 287.
[8] Archer L. Gleason. A Survey of Old Testament Introduction, 15.
[9] J. Dwight Pentecost. The Bible Knowledge Commentary (Chicago: Victor Books, 1987), 1324.